


Ghosts In The Suburbs

by Hypocorismm



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Complete disregard for 3b, Cursed Stiles, Eventual Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Ghost Laura Hale, Laura Hale & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Laura Hale Feels, M/M, Matchmaker Laura, Nightmares, Pre-Slash, Witch Curses, Witches, friendships galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-06 23:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypocorismm/pseuds/Hypocorismm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles gets cursed by a witch and can see dead people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 0-

**_Curse_** ; noun- an evil that has been invoked upon one.

 

Stiles stood at the threshold of the house, staring into its burned guts and just allowed himself to feel. He could feel every one of them, feel every single minute. He could feel the pain, and the agony they went through in their last moments. He could hear their screams, their cries, their pleas to God to just let someone save them, just let someone find them.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice quiet as he’d never heard it. She was loud, and she was demanding, and she never spoke like that.

“I don’t want this anymore. Have you seen what I’ve done? What I’ve caused?”

“She’s the one at fault here, Stiles, not you,” she said, her hand reaching out for him as if to comfort him. She could touch him, part of his little gift, but she never had.

“Maybe,” he sighed wearily. “But I’m the one who brought this on the pack. I had to go out into the woods. It’s always me who gets us into this shit, every single time. Scott never would’ve been bitten if I hadn’t…”

He looked up at her, lost.

“Stiles,” she said, stepping close, _gliding_ close and pressing her cold hand into his cheek. He startled, her touch new to him. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“How can it be? I did this to them. It’s always my fault.”

“Sweetheart,” she said even more gently. “It’ll be okay.”

He didn’t believe her, how could it ever be okay again when he’d killed his entire pack?


	2. 1-

“This is the stupidest thing we have ever done,” Scott mutters, following after Stiles as he trudged up a hill in the Preserve. Derek had warned them not to do exactly what they were doing, but it was Stiles and he had the unfortunate inability to follow rules. “And that’s counting when we went into the woods because _you_ wanted to look for a body and got _me_ bitten by a werewolf!”

“Yeah, and I’ve apologized for that. But Derek said-”

“Derek said _do not go into the woods alone_ until we know what’s going on around town,” Scott said.

“We’re not alone. We’ve got each other. Besides, you’re the Alpha, Scott. You don’t really have to defer to Derek anymore.”

“Stiles.”

“Scott.”

“This is going to get us into so much trouble.”

“He said not to do something, and I can’t help but do the thing. He should know better by now, really,” Stiles said, reaching the crest of the hill just after Scott. They looked down into the dip, the area filled with nothing but dead trees, dead plants, dead everything. “Oh. That’s not good. That’s very, very, tremendously not good.”

“Derek is going to kill us,” Scott said, turning to walk away, back to the Jeep and far away from the dead circle.

Stiles didn’t. He stepped into the circle of dead trees, as if pulled. He stumbled down the other side of the hill, Scott calling out to him.

He stood at the bottom of the valley, turning in a circle to inspect the perfect circle.

There wasn’t a single living thing in the circle, measuring probably about fifty feet in diameter, except Stiles. Every tree, every shrub, every blade of grass was withered and black from the magic undoubtedly killing it. He turned, and turned, looking for some cause to this malady.

“Stiles, c’mon. Let’s go!” Scott called, twitching nervously at the edge of the circle.

“I can’t,” Stiles muttered, looking up towards the tops of the trees. There was something off about the circle, and it wasn’t just the death. It was the smell. It didn’t smell like rot, didn’t smell like anything. It didn’t smell like a forest, living or otherwise. “Something’s wrong.”

“Yeah, something’s wrong. You’re standing in a dead forest; now let’s go before something really bad happens to you!”

“That’s not, that’s not it,” Stiles said, shaking his head. He stepped up to a tree and pressed his hand against the trunk. It was humming, brimming with life just underneath its bark. There was nothing dead about this tree, nothing remotely dead. It felt alive, despite appearances. “I don’t think this is right, or real. It’s an, an…”

He couldn’t think of the word, it teased him on the tip of his tongue.

“ _What is it_?” a voice whispered on the wind, mocking. “ _What is it, little boy_?”

“It’s an illusion. It’s not real. These trees, this forest, it’s alive. It’s so alive, Scott. But,” he paused. But what? What did he mean?

“Stiles, it doesn’t matter. It’s not safe.”

“Who are you?” Stiles called out, the voice cackling around him. “What do you want?”

“ _Such a smart little human, so much smarter than the wolf. Knows us instantly. Hears us. So smart he is_.”

“Who are you?” he asked again. It laughed in his ear.

“Stiles, who are you talking to? It’s just me and you out here, man,” Scott said.

“ _Powerful Alpha, the wolf is. Mm, yes. Would make an excellent pet. Yes, we may keeps him. Not very smart, but strong.”_

“You keep Scott out of this!” Stiles yelled, turning, trying to find the body to accompany the voice. “What do you want?”

“ _The banshee. We wants the screaming child_.”

“Too bad, you can’t have her!” Stiles snarled.

“Stiles!” Scott started forward but slammed into a barrier.

“Mountain ash,” Stiles whispered, looking at the circle. He had missed it when he first stepped into the circle, but there it was, a thick perfect circle of ash preventing Scott from coming in.  

“ _So smart, so very clever, the human is,_ ” the voice teased, mocked, circling Stiles as it spoke. _“He will leads us to the banshee.”_

“He will not,” Stiles ground out.

An angry growl ripped through the air and Stiles looked instinctively to Scott, but it wasn’t him. It wasn’t nearly animalistic enough. His eyes glowed red, his Alpha showing through, but he seemed utterly unperturbed.

“ _You will not decides, you are a weak, useless human, and we decides what happens.”_

Stiles turned just as the being materialized behind him, facing it. She was a woman, tall with a proud chin and sunlight through whiskey eyes, and Stiles stumbled back.

“Stiles,” he heard Scott call. “It’s not her. It’s not. Don’t believe it!”

“Mom,” he whispered, voice carried away on the wind. “No. You’re not my mom. You’re not. My mom is dead.”

“ _Don’t worry, Stiles,_ ” his mom cooed, stepping towards him and taking his jaw in hand. He stilled, her touch icy against his skin. “ _It’s all going to be okay, my boy. Don’t worry.”_

“Stiles, it isn’t her!”

“It can’t be. I was there when she died. You are not her. No illusion will make you her, so drop the act right now.”

The dark growl in Stiles’ voice sent a ripple through the figure before him and the mask fell away, revealing a woman the same age as Claudia had been when she died, long blonde hair tumbling down in snarled curls to her waist, eyes dark and sunken staring at Stiles with an angry hunger, her limbs bony and her waist miniscule. She looked like she hadn’t had a proper meal in months, and she might blow away on a light wind. She wore rags for clothes, three sizes too big and stared at Stiles like he might disappear should she blink.

“ _You’re very smart, Mr. Stilinski, very smart indeed. You will lead us to the banshee, whether or not you know it, whether or not you mean to. You will capture us the wailing woman, and our collection will be complete.”_

Stiles shuddered at the implications. He didn’t want Lydia to disappear, didn’t want her to be taken by this woman, and he certainly didn’t want to be the reason either happened.

“Stiles, just come on,” Scott called. Stiles waved at him behind his back, trying to shut him up.

“If you think you’re going to get to her through me, you’re dead wrong.”

She chuckled, _“Dead wrong? Unfortunate choice of words, Mr. Stilinski.”_

Stiles frowned and started backing away towards Scott. He’d have to turn his back to fully run, and he knew better than that. You don’t turn your back on something, someone who wants to kill you. You just don’t.

Stiles could hear Scott pacing at the border. He’d broken through mountain ash before, but it had hurt, and he knew that Scott wouldn’t go through that unless absolutely necessary. He was a hero, not a masochist.

Of course, if things turned dire, he’d better find a way to break that barrier before Stiles was murdered by some face-changing psychopath.

“ _Just tell us where we can find her, Mr. Stilinski, and we’ll let you and the pup go_ ,” she hissed quietly, taking a step towards him. He took his own away from her, keeping the distance constant between them.

“I don’t think I’m going to do that.”

“ _I think you are.”_

“I really, really don’t think I am,” he snapped and started to run, whipping around to face Scott. He put his head down and focused on just pumping his legs to carry him back up the hill. He was almost there when there was a blinding flash of light and he was hit.

It felt like a knife was shoved into his spine, the sensation tingling up and down his back as he fell to his knees with a cry. He braced himself with his hands, scraping them up on the ground. He breathed through his mouth, trying to tamp down the panic, waiting for the scent of blood to permeate the air. But it never came. The pain faded and he was able to stand. He looked up at Scott, his vision wobbling before it righted itself. They both stood on the outer edge of the circle, Scott holding his hands out like he wanted to help Stiles.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, it was like a flash bomb. I couldn’t see anything, and when it cleared, you were on the ground, and she was gone,” Scott said, moving to Stiles and turning him around. He touched the spot where Stiles was hit, but there was no tenderness, no pain at the site. Stiles shrugged out of his hoodie to find just a burnt hole where he’d been hit, but nothing else. No blood.  

“That was weird,” Stiles muttered. “We should go home.”

“Yeah, come on, let’s go.”


	3. 2-

Stiles didn’t grow an extra head. He didn’t turn into a girl. He could sleep, he could eat, he could think just fine.

Whatever the witch, if that is what she was, had done to him, it wasn’t anything serious, or life-threatening. In fact, the more that he thought about it, it was probably a diversion tactic. She may be following him, or biding her time until she could get him alone, or she had left, unlikely but wishful thinking.

He went to school the next day, and pretended like nothing had happened.

He and Scott didn’t go out, despite Derek’s warning, into the forest where they met a witch, he was pretty sure that’s what she was or another druid, who threatened to kidnap Lydia and make a pet out of Scott.

He did not do that at all.

Nope.

There was no direct disobedience happening the night before.

Nope.

Scott, of course, despite being a werewolf and leader of the pack, kept glancing around nervously all day, like someone might look at them and just know.

“Will you relax?” Stiles hissed at him on their way out of English class. “You’re acting all jumpy and someone’s going to figure out that you’re trying to hide something.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Scott,” Stiles said, grabbing Scott’s arm and stalling him as the crowds passed. “It’s going to be okay, man. Really. It is. If we say nothing, and act _normal_ , no one will know.”

Scott let out a slow breath and nodded.

“You got this?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got this.”

“Good, let’s go get some lunch,” Stiles said, clapping Scott on the back and walking with him into the cafeteria. They got their meager lunches from the line and joined the rest of the pack at their usual table. Allison instinctively nabbed the sugar cookie off Stiles’ tray and passed him her chocolate milk in return. He smiled gratefully at her and took a bite of his hamburger. Lunch food wasn’t the best, it wasn’t even good, but the time between the small breakfast he grabbed on the way out the door in the morning and when they’re finally allowed to eat, often left him ravenous for anything, decent or not.

“So, what’d you guys get up to last night? Stiles didn’t text me back for the longest time, I got worried,” Lydia asked, spearing a delicate amount of lettuce on her barely sharp plastic fork as she looked the pair of them.

Stiles glanced over at Scott, who was literally the least calm person under pressure which made no sense considering werewolf and alpha and life-threatening situations. The minute Lydia asked him a question, just a casual question, that heartbeat skyrocketed and he looked like he was about to bust out his inhaler.

“We were playing Call of Duty,” Stiles said easily, which wasn’t a lie. They had gone home and attempted to get the weird encounter out of their heads with violent video games about war.

“Yeah,” Scott agreed tensely.

“You okay, Scott?” Isaac asked.

“Yeah, totally fine,” Scott said.

“Yeah, totally fine,” Isaac echoed doubtfully.

“Did you beat any of my high scores yet?” Allison asked.

Stiles started to answer when Scott burst out with, “We went into the woods last night!”

“ _Scott!_ ” Stiles yelped, smacking Scott’s shoulder.

“WHAT?” the pack chorused, and then began to talk over each other, demanding to know what happened.

Stiles covered his face with his hands, and grumbled under his breath, “I’m going to hit you so hard that you forget what color Tuesday is.”

“Nothing happened, we just went out there to check it out. We didn’t come across anything… dangerous,” Scott answered.

Stiles snorted.

“What’s that for?” Isaac asked, directing his question at Stiles. “Did you find something out there?”

“Nothing, I just like how he phrased it. Nothing… dangerous,” he mimicked, raised his head to smirk at Scott.  Scott glared at Stiles. “We, well, okay, _I_ got curious and decided to take a moonlit stroll with Scott, and we didn’t find anything interesting.”

“Why was Scott so nervous?” Isaac asked.

“Is that a question you really want to ask? Really, Isaac?” Stiles asked with a look in Isaac’s direction. “Scott, the Alpha, went against Derek, a Beta’s, orders, and doesn’t want his throat to get ripped out, so he’s all jumpy, even though nothing of consequence happened.”

 “Nothing of consequence,” Scott said, shaking his head. “Unlike you, Stiles, I actually respect Derek.”

“I respect him, all right,” Stiles replied easily. “But I think it’s a bit ridiculous how you didn’t treat him like an Alpha when he was one, and now that he’s a Beta, you’re trying to kiss the ground he walks on. It’s a pile of shit, and you’re pathetic.”

Stiles blinked and shook his head.

“I didn’t mean that,” he apologized, glancing around at their pack, who stared at him like he was losing his mind.

“It’s okay, man,” Scott said.

It wasn’t okay. Why had he said that? Yeah, he thought it was a bit odd how Scott was acting nowadays, but he didn’t think he was _pathetic_. He didn’t mean it, and he didn’t mean to say it, even if he thought it which he was pretty sure he hadn’t.

 

-&-

 

Stiles waited until the pack had let him go that night from their near nightly study and homework sessions to venture out into the woods again. He kept his phone on, and headed into the Preserve, as he had been specifically instructed not to.

He had to see the Circle of Death again.

He had to see that it wasn’t just a dream, a delusion.

He just wasn’t sure anymore.

He climbed up the hill by himself, thankful to be without Scott’s moral prattle distracting him.

And when he crested the hill, he paused. Everything was healthy. Everything was living. Nothing was dead. There was no trace of a circle of mountain ash. It was as if nothing had ever happened.

It was as if it was just a dream, a fantasy, a delusion.

Maybe he had the wrong part of the forest. The Preserve was never ending, and there had to be more than one hill that looked similar to this.

He kept going, but the deeper in he got, the more sure he grew that it had been the right hill, and even more afraid that he’d gotten himself lost in the process.

Oh, Derek was going to kill him when he found out.

The nasty voice in his head, the voice that told him to go ahead and do the thing, no one would catch on, contended that Derek was going to kill him _if_ he found out.

He could go home; he could pretend that this little excursion never happened. He could keep his mouth shut, and not tell a soul that he went out searching for a circle of dead plants in the forest just to find nothing. He could, yeah, he could definitely do that… if he could find his way back to his Jeep.

He checked his phone, hoping that maybe he could map out the way home using his GPS app, but as his luck would have it, he had no service to do that with.

“What is the point of technology,” he growled, shoving his phone back into his pocket, “if I don’t get service anywhere?”

He continued back the way he came, hoping he’d come across the hill, or the Hale house, or the Jeep, or the road, or the Nemeton. Anything, really, at this point that might point him in the right direction.

It was dark, and it was kind of cold, and he really had to get home before his dad got off work, and he had to get home before Derek popped out of nowhere and threatened to rip his throat out with his teeth.

He really didn’t doubt that Derek would, since this was not the first, but the second time that Stiles had disobeyed the same order to stay out of the Preserve until they had more information about the odd happenings around town. Derek wasn’t any easier to deal with now than he had been before, not that Stiles blamed him. His uncle betrayed him, his girlfriend used him, and his sister left him. His pack, half of it at least, was killed, and he was now a Beta to a teenaged Alpha. The guy didn’t have it easy, and that just made him surlier and more difficult.

The point is, he wouldn’t put it past Derek to rip out his throat because Stiles was a disobedient little shit.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he hissed, whirling around. Nothing looked familiar, at all, not that he was all that familiar with the forest in the first place. He had grown up in the woods, sure, but he didn’t normally wander this far into it.

“He is going to _kill_ me,” Stiles said, running a hand nervously through his hair.

“Who is going to kill you?” a voice asked from behind him. Stiles spun around and groaned.

“Derek,” he said tersely. “What are you doing out here?”

“I figured you wouldn’t do what I asked you to do, so I’ve been out here every night, just to be sure. What are _you_ doing out here?”

“I lost my contact,” Stiles said easily.

“Stiles, you don’t wear contacts,” Derek replied.

“How do you know, creeper?”

Derek just gave him a flat, unamused look.

“Stiles, what are you doing out here?” he asked again.

“I was, well, honestly, Derek, I got curious. I had to see if there was anything out here,” Stiles said, not technically lying. He was curious to see if there was something out here, a specific, very dangerous something, but Derek didn’t _have_ to know that part.

“I figured,” Derek said with an excessive roll of his eyes. “When do you ever listen to what you’re told? You’re a little shit, you’re disobedient, you’re reckless, you’re careless, and you endanger the pack uselessly.”

“Don’t pull your punches, Derek, _Jesus_ ,” Stiles said.

“Why don’t you just run along home and try not to get yourself killed on the way there?”

Stiles nodded slowly, gritting his teeth. He’d been in yelling matches with Derek before, it hadn’t helped and they didn’t get anywhere.

He turned and faced the endless dark forest and let out a defeated sigh, turning back to face Derek.

“I’m lost.”

Derek blinked slowly, as if questioning all of his life’s decisions that landed him here in this moment with Stiles. Stiles questioned all of Derek’s life decisions, too, because this was not a fun moment to be in.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Stiles,” Derek half growled, half groaned before marching off the way he came.

“You could do what everyone else does,” Stiles suggested, jogging to keep up.

“Oh, and what’s that?” Derek asked.

“Roll their eyes, sigh heavily, and tell me to shut up, Stilinski,” Stiles replied easily, ducking underneath a low hanging branch.

“Does your father know you’re out of the house, wandering the woods like an idiot, at night?”

“Uhh, no, no, he does not. He wasn’t home, he’s pulling another double shift, what with all of the break ins and robberies and assaults that have been, you know, happening.”

“So with all of these break ins and robberies and assaults happening, you decided that you’d take a nice stroll through a forest that you have proof is dangerous in the dark by yourself without any type of weapon? Does that sound about right, Stiles?”

“I never claimed I was intelligent,” Stiles said.

Derek groaned again but didn’t respond as he led them out of the forest and to the dirt road Stiles had parked the Jeep on the shoulder of. He waited as Stiles climbed in and started her up to reply.

“The problem isn’t that you’re not intelligent, Stiles,” Derek said. “There’s no question that you’re smart. You just have no sense of self-preservation or common sense.”

“You know,” Stiles said, reaching for the buckle on his seat. “And I mean this with the _highest_ of respect for you, Derek, but that’s just a little too hypocritical for me to stand this late at night. Excuse me; I have to get home before my father does.”

With that, he closed his door and pulled away, leaving Derek standing in the road, eyes glinting in the glow of Stiles’ tail lights.


	4. 3-

The crimes that plagued Beacon Hills abruptly stopped, leaving the Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Department (save his father) dumbfounded, and any sign of their supernatural visitor went with it. Life went on.

It just didn’t matter to Stiles that much anymore.

“Mr. Stilinski,” a voice called from somewhere near him, muted from the nothing in Stiles’ head. “Mr. _Stilinski_!”

Stiles’ attention snapped back to the teacher at the front of the class. Her hands rested on her hips as she stared at him, angry brown eyes boring down into his very soul.

“Well?” she snapped.

“Uhhh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Anderson. I don’t know.”

“Mr. Stilinski, this is the third time that you have dazed off in class _today_. I don’t even want to think about how many times it’s been this week. And I cannot handle this anymore. Go see the guidance counselor, please.”

Stiles sighed and gathered his books, jamming his pen into his pocket and pointedly avoiding Scott’s gaze as he trudged out of the classroom. He tried to remember if he’d taken his Adderall that morning, but his head felt fuzzier, felt like it wasn’t attached to his shoulders, and he assumed that he hadn’t. He also hadn’t brought his prescription bottle with him today, so it was still at home on his dresser and of no use to him there.

He plunked down into a seat outside of Ms. Morrell’s office to wait until that door opened and he was brought inside to talk about his inattention, _again_. It was true, though, that he had been dazing off as of late. He couldn’t focus, which wasn’t anything new but this was different than usual. He could feel the difference in his inattention. His mind wasn’t working a mile a minute on 10 separate things simultaneously. In fact, his mind wasn’t working on anything at all. On any given moment, Stiles could list 17 possible impending supernatural attacks on Beacon Hills in alphabetical order and then list them by possible danger level. But at that moment, Stiles couldn’t think of one thing, not one thing.

It scared him.

He had lived his entire life moving faster than everyone else, thinking so many thoughts all at once while his classmates concentrated on their work and only their work. He had this thing that followed him around, that some people would label a hindrance but he lived with it, what else could he do?

The door swung open and a big hulking freshman thundered out, cursing under his breath while Ms. Morrell breezed to the door. She sighed and turned to look at her waiting room.

“Mr. Stilinski,” she sighed wearily. “Mrs. Anderson called me to let me know you were coming down, said something about you not paying attention in class. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Stiles smirked and shook his head.

“Come in, Mr. Stilinski,” Ms. Morrell said, stepping inside and disappearing from view. Stiles stood and found his way into the office, shutting the door quietly behind him. He sunk into the seat across from her and set his books on the other chair.

“What’s going on, Stiles?” she asked gently.

“I don’t know,” Stiles replied. “I just feel fuzzy, I can’t focus on anything. And not like the usual unfocus, I can’t focus on anything at all. My mind isn’t working, and I can’t stay in the moment. I just drift away, and everything just gets muffled.”

“Have you taken your medication today?”

“I don’t remember. I can’t tell if this is from not taking it or if it’s from the medication, and it’s a new side effect,” Stiles said, twisting his hands nervously together. “I don’t want to go on new medication again. That trial and error period when I was first diagnosed was just too much. I was always sick, and this one has been working well ever since. I don’t want to go back to that.”

“Maybe you’re just having an off-day.”

“I’ve been having an off-day all week.”

She frowned and leaned forward against the desk, arms crossed over her chest.

“Have you been sleeping well?”

“No worse than usual. Everything’s fine, physically. I eat fine. I sleep fine. My hands aren’t shaking,” he said. “It feels like I’m in a glass box. I can see everyone around me, but everything is just muffled, muted. I see their mouths moving, but I can’t hear them, and I don’t want to. I don’t _care_ what they’re saying. I don’t _care_ what they’re doing. I’m glad that they’re so far away.”

Ms. Morrell looked puzzled in her seat, staring at Stiles like he was something new, something entirely unique.

“I don’t want to make you think that I don’t care, Stiles,” she said finally, leaning back in her chair. “But I think this might be more suited for your usual doctor, medication wise. However, before you set up an appointment with him, go a couple more days, remember your medication. Maybe it is just an off-week for you. Maybe you just need to work through some things.”

“What things? I’m okay. There’s nothing wrong besides this!”

“Stiles, there’s no need to shout.”

He wanted to be a petulant child and make a snotty comment, but he couldn’t bring himself to come up with something. He just wanted to go back to sleep.

“How much do I have to beg you to excuse me for the day? I want to go to bed _so bad_ , and maybe if I get some sleep, I’ll be better in the morning.”

She smiled.

“Just this one time,” she said, reaching for her notepad. She scribbled down an excusal and then signed it. “Sleep well, Stiles.”

 

-&-

 

The truth is, Stiles didn’t sleep well. When he got home, his father was still getting ready for a late shift at the station.

“Stiles, what are you doing home so early? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he replied. He pulled the crumpled up pass from his pocket and handed it over. “Ms. Morrell excused me from class for the day.”

“What for?” the Sheriff asked.

“I wasn’t going to be much use there, anyway?” Stiles said with a shrug. He didn’t know how to explain it. “I don’t think I took my medication this morning, and I got into trouble a couple of times, and she sent me home to get some sleep.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with your pack, would it?” the Sheriff asked cautiously. He tried not to pry too much into the pack’s activities, but when he did, he did so with extreme delicacy. “Because, if there’s something going on, Stiles, I need to know, and you need to be safe.”

“There’s nothing going on, Dad, don’t worry. This is just me, off my medication by accident. I didn’t get a lot of sleep, couple that with my lack of Adderall, and I am a shit student.”

“Language.”

“Right, sorry. So, Ms. Morrell took pity on me, and gave me the afternoon off to catch a nap and to straighten myself out. That’s all. No big disaster here.”

The Sheriff looked him over carefully with all of his training before he nodded.

“Alright, get to bed, then. I have to work tonight, so you’re on your own for dinner.”

“I will be dropping by around dinner time,” Stiles said, carrying his bag towards the stairs. “You have to eat healthy if you want to drop that blood pressure, Dad.”

“I sometimes wonder who the parent is in this house.”

“Sometimes, so do I.”

He took the stairs two at a time and pushed through his bedroom door, shutting it with his foot. He took out his phone, ready to let Scott know what was going on, a text from Allison waiting for his attention.

 

**From: Alli A**

**12:31**

**Saw you sneak off campus, Stilinski. What’s up?**

**To: Alli A**

**12:56**

**Didn’t sneak, have permission. Not feeling well. Thanks for checking up on me though.**

**To: Alli A**

**12:56**

**Really, no sarcasm. Thank you.**

**To: Scotty**

**12:57**

**Left school early, pick up my homework? Tell you all about it tonight for Halo?**

**From: Scotty**

**12:58**

**Sure**

Stiles lay down on his bed, toing off his shoes as he stared at his ceiling. He let himself relax into the comforter, let the fog in his mind cloud over his entire body as he slipped off to sleep.

When he surfaced, the sun was shining through his window, warming the room as if it was summer time, and there was a dog barking nearby. A soft singing was echoing from downstairs, the vacuum almost drowning it out. He rose from the bed and stumbled from his room and back downstairs. He followed the noise to the living room and stopped in the door frame.

“Mom,” he breathed out. She was there, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt loose on her thin frame, long brown hair swept up into a clip behind her. She sang a popular country song while she pushed the old vacuum over their carpet, the coffee table pushed onto the wood out of the way.

“Stiles,” she called over her shoulder. She turned and startled. “Oh, dear. You snuck up on me, little duck!”

She set the vacuum aside, clicking it off with her bare foot.

“I have a surprise for you, come on,” she cooed.

Stiles remembered this. His father had gotten a raise the week before and Claudia had sold a painting on the side. She’d swept Stiles into a bath and then dressed him up in nice clothes for dinner. Before his father got home, though, she’d set him on the kitchen counter and presented him with a brand new Hess truck set. He’d been thrilled. He’d been six at the time, and couldn’t wait to show Scott.

“You died,” Stiles said softly as she led him into the kitchen by hand. “When I was eight. You can’t be here.”

“Of course, I can.”

“Mom.”

“Come on, duckling, don’t you want your surprise?”

He wanted to wake up, wanted to pinch himself so he would, but the only time he saw his mother was in his dreams. Real or not, this was his only time with her.

“Yeah, yeah, I do.”

He followed her not to the kitchen, though, but to the back yard. He let out a yelp and reeled backwards. The backyard was littered with dead bodies, victims of the Alpha pack, and Peter Hale, and the kanima, and of the Darach. They lay bloodied and broken, their wounds festering with rot and decay.

“Mom!”

He looked to her for help, and found her a corpse as well. Her eyes were sunken in as she stared at him, her skin lost its luster, tubes and wires poked into her skin. This is the mother that he had watched die. This is his real mother, not some dream, some fantasy.

“ ** _Stiles_**!”

He woke with a start, jolting from the backyard to his bed. He glanced around wearily, dazedly.

“You invite me for Halo and are conked out when I get here,” Scott complained, plopping into the free space by his legs. “Some host you are.”

Stiles seized the clock on his nightstand.

**4:16**

“You okay? You look really pale, man.”

“Nightmare,” Stiles breathed quietly, sitting up and pulling his knees to his chest.

“Want to talk about it?”

Stiles shook his head.

“Let’s just play some Halo, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay, I’m here if you change your mind.”

“Thanks, Scotty. I know that.”

“Good, let’s get started on kicking your ass.”

Stiles let out a snort, “As if.”


	5. 4-

The nightmares kept coming, plaguing Stiles every night. He saw Heather’s death, and then Tara’s, sacrificed for Jennifer’s power. He saw his mother again and again, sometimes in her hospital bed, sometimes leading him to the backyard. He woke up every night with a start, body coated in cold sweat, doldrums pounding ceaselessly inside his head. He felt weak as he pulled himself up onto the edge of his bed, shoulders hunched over, and hands trembling at his sides.

His nights were bad.

His days were worse.

He had gotten used to the cotton in his head, the inability to just focus on something. He could deal with that, almost. It was the screaming he hated. He was walking through the school on his way to Chemistry the first time he heard it, heard _them_. They screamed, screamed like something was missing from them, screamed like they were being torn in half. He dropped his books and took off after the sound, shoving his classmates aside and yelling. He screeched to a halt as the screaming did, and he looked around, confused, scared. It happened every day, without fail. He covered his ears now whenever it started, buried his head in his arms and just prayed for it to stop. Sometimes the screaming was short, a minute or two at most, and then there were days that the screaming just kept going, endless like staring out at the ocean. He locked himself in a stall in the bathroom, curled into himself as he begged the noises to stop.

He was losing his mind.

That was the only explanation. No one else heard the screams, the cries. No one was up late at night because they’d watched their mother die in her hospital bed again. No one woke up shouting, begging to be cured of this plague that had fallen on him, showing him everything he wished he could forget.  

No one noticed the dark circles under his eyes, the shake in his hands, the jumpiness he’d adopted, and if they did, they said nothing about it. It was just Stiles after all, weird, eccentric, talks-too-much Stiles. He was always moving, so the twitch he’d inherited as of late was nothing to worry about. He was always talking, so his incessant blabbering about ghost screams weren’t to be paid attention to.

Everything was fine, except everything that wasn’t.

And everything was going swimmingly in the world of Beacon Hills. There wasn’t any whiff of supernatural baddies coming to kill their pack. There weren’t any mysterious, random break-ins and assaults happening simultaneously across the country. There wasn’t anything suspicious. It was calm.

Beacon Hills was never calm.

“See! I told you we shouldn’t have gone that way!” Stiles yelled through his pants, running as fast as he could with Scott just ahead of him and Allison beside him.

The pack was, unsurprisingly, on the run from a group of ravenous hunters out for their blood. They’d been training in a clearing near the school when an arrow whizzed past Scott’s ear, nicking it, and embedded itself in a tree trunk just to Derek’s right.

“Save your told you so’s for when we’re not about to be shot!” Derek barked from the front of the pack. They burst through the brush into a clearing and pulled up short, standing at the edge of the cliff that dropped into the quarry.

“Where now?” Isaac asked, barely winded. _Werewolves_.

“Split up,” Stiles answered, leaning over beside Scott with his hands resting on his knees. His heart pounded in his chest, breath whooshing in and out quickly, even though he was more than used to running for his life by now.

“Why?” Derek asked.

“More targets to hunt, less chance of being caught. Break up their forces, and hide out until they’ve given up for a while,” Stiles said with a shrug.

“He’s right,” Allison said, nodding with Stiles.

“Alright,” Derek sighed. He glanced around. “We’re not far from the house.”

The house, Stiles realized after a moment of confusion, meant his old burnt out shell of a home.

“Isaac, you take Allison, Lydia, and Stiles, take them the long way around, try to go as fast as they can,” Derek said, pointing in what Stiles knew was the opposite direction. “If the hunters come after you, drop them off at whose ever house is closest, and hide out there.”

Isaac nodded.

“Scott, we’ll lead them away from the house and circle back when we’ve lost them.”

Stiles stared. When did Derek have good plans? His plans were always half-cocked and not very well thought out. But this, this _made sense._

Derek gave him a look before heading back towards the hunters to get their attention.

Isaac pushed and prodded the humans away from Derek and Scott, urging them on until they started booking it away from the house. It took them over an hour and a half to run nearly the entire circumference of the preserve and back to the Hale house. Allison pushed open the door for them, Lydia following and then Isaac. Stiles lingered on the porch, a sense of dread filling his stomach like ice.

“Come on, inside,” Isaac said, stepping out and herding Stiles through the doorway. He stepped into the arch and froze.

It was just too overwhelming, shoving at him and dragging at him like waves washing in and out of the beach. He took a sharp breath, eyes swimming as the panic filled him quickly. He couldn’t handle it.

The screaming.

The begging.

“ _Please, let us out. Momma, why can’t we get out?”_

_“Talia, what’s going on? Why can’t we get out?”_

_“Calm down, Stephen, freaking out isn’t going to help. Try to keep the kids calm. Peter was just out getting something from the garden, he’ll be right in. He’ll let us out.”_

_“What if he-“_

_“We have to have faith in him, Stephen. He’s my brother, he’ll save us.”_

_“Momma, I can’t breathe.”_

Stiles felt the smoke in the child’s lungs as if it were filling up his own. He gripped the doorway as he wheezed.

“Stiles?” Isaac asked tentatively, resting his hand on Stiles’ shoulder.

_“The door is jammed!”_

_“Just break it down!”_

_“Talia, I can’t. I tried.”_

_“Peter.”_

_“No amount of alpha voice is going to break down this door. I’m too weak, I’m sorry.”_

_“Did you call 911?”_

_“Stephen.”_

_“What? I’m human, Talia! They can help!”_

_“Fine, Peter, call 911.”_

_“Momma. It’s getting hot in here.”_

_“I know, baby. It’s going to be okay. Uncle Peter is getting help.”_

_“Why can’t we just break down the door? Derek broke the wall last week, why can’t Peter break down the door?”_

_“The thing is, Peter’s not strong enough.”_

_“Stephen!”_

_“Uncle Peter is getting help, though. Right, Daddy?”_

_“Yeah, he is. Uncle Peter’s going to get us out.”_

Their hope flared up and choked Stiles. He knew how this story ended, with Laura and Derek orphaned, and Peter locked inside his own mind while his body attempted to mend the damage. He knew that Peter wasn’t going to get them out and he would spend years stewing in his own guilt and failures, eventually driving himself insane. He would kill his own niece and anyone who stood in his way. Stiles _knew_ how this story ended, and he didn’t really want to continue listening to their hope that someone would come save them.

“Stiles, are you okay? You’re scaring me.”

He couldn’t respond, his attention dragged back to the Hale pack.

_“Peter? Are you, Peter? PETER!”_

_“What’s wrong, Talia?”_

_“Peter, he’s not, he’s not, I can hear his heartbeat, but it’s slowed. Something crashed down, I think he’s hurt. He’s not moving.”_

_“Mommy, is Uncle Peter okay?”_

_“I don’t know, baby. Go sit with Pop-Pop.”_

_“Talia, what is it?”_

_“There’s no way out, Stephen. There’s no way we can get the kids out in time. We can’t break the door down, which means there must be wolfsbane fed into the air. We can’t get out the windows because they’re not big enough, not even for any of the little ones. Derek and Laura won’t be back for hours. We’re not going to make it out of this.”_

_“Talia, you can’t think that way.”_

_“We’re going to die, Stephen.”_

_“Maybe Peter called 911. Maybe there’s someone on their way right now.”_

_“And maybe we’re trapped down here.”_

_“Talia.”_

_“Stephen. I love you.”_

_“Talia.”_

_“I love you.”_

_“I love you too.”_

_“Get the kids, I want to talk to them before…”_

Stiles could feel the heat creeping up on the family, could feel it like someone had stuck him in an oven. He tries to breathe in fresh air, tries to feel the chilled early spring air, but he’s stuck in that basement with the rest of the Hales, and he’s going to burn with them.

_“Okay, babies, gather around. Momma’s going to tell you a story.”_

Stiles choked out a sob, leaning into the door, listening to Talia’s voice instruct the kids to sit down where they could hear her.

_“Everyone ready? Settle down, Izzy. Sit in Pop-Pop’s lap, Gracie. Okay, here we go! Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, lived the beautiful Princess Effy who lived with her widowed father, the King, in a palace on top of a hill. Effy was just as a princess should be, beautiful, clever,_ _polite, a little smaller than most girls her age and maybe just a little stubborn, if she felt she wasn’t getting what she wanted. There was one thing she wanted more than anything in the world, more than her 5 white horses, more than her 20 silk dresses, even more than her 50 pairs of hand-made shoes. SOUP!_ _The beautiful Princess Effy liked soup. No, she LOVED soup. She loved soups of all kinds; vegetable soup meat soup, thin soup, thick soup, hot soup, cold soup, spicy soup, bland soup, cream soup. Well you get the idea. Now, no one really knows why Effy liked soup so much, but many say it was because of what happened to her when she was a little girl.”_

_“What happened, Momma?”_

_“Well, you see, Gracie, Effy had snuck out of the palace and was playing on a frozen lake nearby when she slipped! And fell through some thin ice, into the freezing water below! She would have drowned too, if she hadn’t been saved by two little boys, who dragged her to safety. The three would have become great friends, but then, the boys began arguing, and ignored the poor shivering princess! And before Effy could thank them, she was rushed back to the palace and given a pot of soup to keep warm. As she ate that soup, she thought of the two boys that had saved her and enjoyed the soup **very** much. Ever since that day, she would have soup whenever she could.”_

Stiles felt the flames creep closer, the smoke thicker in the air. He couldn’t see his own time, just a hazy screen from the past.

_“The years passed by, and as it approached the princess’ 21 st birthday,”_

_“That’s old!”_

_“Izzy.”_

_“Sorry, Momma.”_

_“As it approached the princess’ 21 st birthday, the King’s thoughts, as king’s thoughts often do, turned to the marriage of his only daughter and finding a suitable prince for Effy. The King was a gentle and loving man, often skipping important state events in order to help Effy with her riding, or hand delivering some soup whilst she painted her pictures, of soup. When she wasn’t eating soup, she was riding the horses around the estate. She loved everything in her life, but she found the suitors her father presented to her boring and uninteresting.”_

_“Why don’t they just find her a mate? Wolf mates are not going to be boring or uninteresting!”_

_“Izzy, Princess Effy isn’t a wolf like you or me. She’s just a human. She doesn’t have a mate.”_

_“Well, that’s dumb.”_

_“The next story, Isabelle, will be about wolf mates. How does that sound?”_

Stiles felt the crack in Talia’s voice as she promised her daughter a story that would never come.

_“Okay!”_

_“Okay. Where were we? Ahh. Effy loved her father very much, but could not marry for his sake. She wanted someone special, and she could wait. Effy was very clever and she had an idea. As she loved her father and knew how important this was to him, she agreed to marry on one condition; the man she would marry would have to be able to cook the best soup in the world. The King pondered over this for some time, scratching his long beard in thought. It was more difficult than the King had first thought, after all Effy was rather the expert on the subject. The King looked over his glasses at his daughter and smiled. ‘Do you know,’ he said in his soft but deep voice, ‘I think that is a very good idea!’_

_“The King set about telling the kingdom, delivering posters across the land, offering his daughter’s hand in marriage if a man could cook the world’s most perfect soup. Of course, there was great interest, the sales of cook books shot up, food shelves were bare, as would-be chefs tried hard to perfect the ‘best soup in the world.’ Now to a chef, this was a challenge, and especially to Barry Gorge who was one of the best chef’s in the land, and who as it happened, lived in the local town. Barry was not an attractive man, but he cared not to impress people with the way he looked. He wanted to be appreciated for the way he cooked! He had to watch to trail of chefs, princes, and would-be kings march up the hill with hopes high, only to return a few minutes later with sad faces and empty bowls._

_“Barry spent this time perfecting his soup, years of practice and good reputation made him the favorite in the race to make Effy his wife. Truth be told, Barry had no interest in Effy, his dream was to be recognized as the best chef in the land and this was his chance._

_“Three weeks had passed, and the King was getting frustrated with the delay. He watched over Effy as every hopeful, bowing gracefully, passed over a bowl of soup and waited. They were often too excited to watch, as Effy always scoffed the lot. After all, she looked good soup and bed soup. The King, of course, would know straight away the outcome. Effy did not have to speak. She pushed the bowl away, wiped her mouth, would screw up her nose like a mouse, and say ‘Thank you, that was nice… but I have tasted better.’_

_“When it came to Barry’s turn, there was a buzz that went around the palace. Crowds gathered and wished him well as he began the long walk up the hill to the palace.”_

Talia’s voice grew thick, and she coughed. Stiles’ heart clenched. She was going to die of smoke inhalation before the house ever fully caught fire. The entire pack was.

_“Those that didn’t know him would have thought he was the strangest of characters, a scruffy looking fellow, red-faced, huffing and puffing as he climbed, as it did, after all, take him longer than most. He soon began to regret the years of sampling his own cooking. He may have been scruffy, he may have been out of breath, but Barry was confident. The palace staff was confident. The King was confident. Even little Effy was expecting something good! Effy produced her special spoon and took a little of the soup and smelt it. She smiled. The King smiled. Barry nodded, feeling rather smug indeed.”_

_“She closed her eyes and took a sip. ‘Hmmmm, lovely,’ she said. The King clapped, the servants cheered, but as the King went to shake Barry’s hand, Effy interrupted them. ‘But, there is something missing.’ Barry could not believe his ears. He became very red and very cross. ‘Something missing?!?’ he shouted. He pushed away the platter and the bowl, and stomped out of the palace, barging all the servants out of his way. The servants went back to their work; the King forced a smiled, turned his back, and went up to bed. Only Effy remained at the table, trying to save the soup. After all, it was good soup!_

_“Momma, I can’t breathe.”_

_“It’s okay, baby. Just keep listening to my voice. From outside the royal windows, a shadowy figure stared at the princess, and then disappeared, following the Chef into town. Barry was fuming, he didn’t notice the servants he pushed out of the way, or the crowds waiting for him in the town, or the King Barry posters that had been put up outside his restaurant. He also didn’t notice the shadowy figure follow him down the dark alley way behind the large kitchen of his restaurant. As he entered the kitchen, he sat down, collapsing against his pots and pans with his head in his hands. He must have fallen asleep as he was suddenly startled by a noise in the yard. He jumped up with a start and crept towards the door with a wooden spoon. He opened the back door and went into the yard. Nothing. As he re-entered the kitchen and closed the door behind him, he came face to face with the mysterious stranger.”_

_“Only, it was no stranger to Barry Gorge, this was Frank. Frank was Barry’s brother. Their eyes met, Frank, younger and slightly taller and considerably slimmer than Barry, was dressed in some smart, bright, foreign-looking clothes. Although he would never admit it, he was a handsome man and stood confidently in front of his elder brother. Barry and Frank were not the best of brothers; they had fought all their lives, each one believing that they were better than the other.”_

_“Like Laura and Derek!”_

_“Yeah, Gracie, like Laura and Derek.”_

Talia Hale had a nice laugh, gentle like wind chimes. It reminded Stiles of his own mother’s laugh before she had become sick.

_“They had the same interested, played the same sports, but had never agreed on anything. Frank had left the town as soon as he was old enough to travel on his own. Frank, like Barry, was also a chef and had spent the last 5 years travelling the world, collecting spices and flavors from every country he visited, storing them in leather pouches hanging from his belt. Frank tried to explain how he had seen the posters and thought that he would like to make a soup for the princess. He also explained how he had watched from the window and saw the princess reject the soup. Barry could not listen to any more; he didn’t want his brother teasing him about his soup. Frank went on to say how his heart had leapt when he saw the princess, how beautiful Effy was, how in love he had fallen, but Barry had disappeared upstairs before he could finish._

_“Frank spent the night using the kitchen and spare food to create his masterpiece. He wanted more than anything to impress Princess Effy. He took off his belt and used the spices in large quantities to give the soup a special zing! Unfortunately, he was not a great chef. In fact, he was quite terrible. But believing love will find a way, he marched up to the palace gates and knocked firmly on the palace door. As it was so early, only the princess was awake and wandering the palace. When Effy opened the door, she instantly fell in love with Frank. She had never felt the same about anything before, apart from soup, of course._

_“She invited him in, and called her father without taking her eyes off of Frank. Now the King was unsure of Frank. He could see that his daughter was impressed by this man but rules were rules. If he could not create the best soup in the world, he would not be allowed to marry Effy. As the table was prepared and the soup brought forward, he watched Effy like a hawk, if it wasn’t a fantastic soup, he would tell. The soup was heated and brought to Effy. The princess smiled at Frank and Frank smiled back, passing the bowl to her. She took out her spoon and dipped it in the soup. She hoped more than anything that it would be the best soup. And then, just as she brought the spoon to her mouth, the palace door flung open._

_“‘WAIT!’ It was Barry. He had been listening to Frank the night before. He had used a touch of Frank’s spices in his own recipe, and once tested, he had rushed to the palace just in time. ‘Frank! You have the wrong soup! This is yours!’ Effy looked at the two brothers and suddenly, they both looked familiar. These were the boys that had helped her out of the frozen lake all those years ago! Frank was confused, but his brother was so insistent the soup swap was made, the King, Effy and all of the servants believed him and the exchange was made. Barry winked at Frank.”_

Talia could barely speak without coughing, and the rest of the pack, human or otherwise were fading fast, letting out terrible coughs as they tried to find fresh air, tried to rid their lungs of the thick smoke. They were dying, and all Stiles could do was listen. Their fear burrowed itself into his stomach and found its home there. They were going to die, and Talia kept going to keep their minds off it.

_“He placed his soup on the table. The princess took the bowl and tried the soup. Her eyes opened wide and she beamed as she said, ‘That’s it! The world’s best soup!’ The King looked closely and could tell his daughter was telling the truth. He couldn’t believe it. ‘Congratulations, my son!’ he said, putting his arm around Frank. Frank took Effy in his arms and asked her to marry him. It didn’t take long for an answer. ‘Oh, yes! Yes!’ Before the month was out, they were married._

_“Frank never understood why Barry had come to his rescue, perhaps he wanted to see his brother happy, perhaps he wanted to prove that he could make the best soup in the world… with the right ingredients! Whatever the reason, one thing is for sure, they all lived, as often as they do in these stories, happily ever after.”_

_“Again, Momma.”_

_“Yeah, Talia.”_

_“Okay, once upon a time.”_

Stiles tried not to listen, tried to focus on anything but, but the moment he did was the moment that he could feel each little baby wolf in the room’s lungs filling to the brim with smoke as they breathed. He could feel them start to cry as Talia told them again the story of the Soup Princess. She didn’t get halfway through when Gracie stopped breathing, and then Isabelle. Stiles didn’t know the Hales, only what he’d seen of them around town growing up, but his heart broke. His heart broke for Peter who had tried to save his family. His heart broke for Laura who had felt the moment her mother had died, passing on the Alpha trait. His heart broke for Cora who had spent 6 years without her family, believing she was alone. His heart broke for Derek who shouldered the guilt and the responsibility of every pack member he lost in the fire.

When the last Hale heart stopped beating, Stiles just let the agony of it all take him over, and he fell, and fell, and was out before he hit the floor.

 

-&-

“-iles. Hey. Stiles. Wake up.”

The voice drifted around in Stiles’ head, bouncing off the edges and coming back into focus.

“Wha-“

“Hey, he’s coming around.”

“How you feeling?”

“Come on, guys, give him some room.”

Stiles opened his eyes slowly and blinked, looking around. Allison was crouched immediately to his right and Scott to his left while Derek, Isaac, and Lydia hovered off to the side, and an extra face. She was in her twenties, long dark hair hanging around her face, and hazel eyes staring intently at him. Her eyes widened as they made eye contact.

“Easy,” Scott said as Stiles pushed himself up, electing to ignore the girl before looking around him. He was inside the house, lying on the dirty ground, and no one else was acknowledging that girl.

“What happened?” Stiles asked.

“We were hoping you could tell us,” Allison said. “We got to the house and you just froze in the doorway. You, uhhm, you started crying, and you were hyperventilating, and then you just blacked out.”

“I don’t know…” Stiles said, heart beat staggering as he openly lied. Scott’s eyebrows drew together in confusion.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just haven’t been sleeping well, and I don’t know, something just came over me.”

His heart beat stayed steady that time. He made sure of it. He didn’t need Derek to know that he felt his entire family _die_.

“Where are the hunters?”

“Gave up,” Scott said proudly, puffing his chest out.

“More specifically,” Derek said pointedly, “They’ve headed back to the school to try and figure out who we are.”

Stiles took Scott’s hand and he pulled Stiles up onto his feet.

“You okay, man?”

“Yeah, man, I’m fine.”

Scott nodded and clapped Stiles on the back.

“You sure, you still look a little,” Allison said and wobbled her hand to explain what she meant.

“Yeah, I think I just need some air.”

“That’s not a goo-” Derek started before Lydia slammed her arm into his chest with all her force. You don’t mess with Lydia Martin, even if she is a human and you’re a werewolf.

“Let him go, Derek,” Lydia said.

The girl huffed out a laugh at Derek’s expense.

“Don’t wander too far. There might still be scouts out there.”

“Yes, sir!”

Stiles saluted Derek with a sarcastic grin and headed outside, feeling rather than seeing the girl following him. No one made a comment. This was just another part of Stiles’ newfound psychosis.

He wandered into the woods, whistling an old Blink-182 song quietly to himself until he was sure he was out of earshot of the wolves. He stopped and looked up at the trees, the sunlight glaring down through the bare branches. He felt her there behind him, her presence tickling at the nape of his neck.

“What do you want from me?” he asked quietly, whirling around to face her.

He knew exactly who she was, although he’d only seen her dead body. Laura Hale.

“I want to know why you can see me,” she demanded.

“I would really like to know that myself, actually.”

She stepped forward towards him, her feet barely touching the ground. She reached out as if to touch him, but drew her hand back when Stiles recoiled.

“I’ve seen you before, with my brother. But you’ve never seen me?”

“Never.”

She frowned.

“You’re sure?”

“I have never seen you before, not like this. I swear.”

She was staring at his chest, presumably listening to his heartbeat. When it stayed steady, she nodded.

“Oh. Well. I’m Laura Hale.”

“I know. I’m Stiles Stilinski.”

“I know. It’s nice to meet you, actually meet you, Stiles.”

“Yeah, you too.”

They stared awkwardly at each other for a moment before looking around, Stiles swinging his arms just for something to do.

“Soooo,” Laura said slowly. “What now?”

“I don’t know. Never talked to a ghost before.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

They looked at each other and started to laugh.

“Do you mind if I hang around you? I mean,” she asked suddenly. “I don’t have anyone to talk to. I talk at Derek, but he can’t hear it, and it’s not as satisfying. I just float around after Derek. I even followed Cora for a while. Thanks for saving her, by the way. And I’m just, I’m so bored. I can’t _do anything_!”

Stiles chewed his lip while he thought about it. His life was already difficult enough with his attention span and their supernatural problems, but then again, he felt so alone. And Laura was alone. What harm could come from having someone around?

“Come on, no one has to know,” she said with a playful wink. Stiles liked Laura already. She was fun, the exact opposite of Derek, and she smiled. Stiles had seen Derek smile a grand total of three times, maybe, and he was faking it every time. Laura _actually_ smiled, and she meant it.

“Stiles!” Scott called.

“Yeah, coming!” Stiles yelled. He gestured for Laura to come along as he headed back to the house. “Can’t go anywhere without my ghost.”

She grinned and skipped forward ahead of him.

 _Nothing_ like Derek. 


	6. 5-

Laura got bored easily, Stiles discovered by the end of the night. After Derek had determined it was safe for the pack to disperse back to their own homes (“It should be safe. I want you all back in your own houses before sundown.” “Our own houses? Scott and I-” “I don’t care, Stiles. You will go back to your house, and Scott will go back to his own. Do you understand? Don’t make me keep an eye on your house to make sure you stay there.” “Well, that would be no different than normal!”), Stiles and Laura walked back to the Jeep parked at the school parking lot, and just talked.

“You should tell me about you,” Laura prompted about five minutes into their walk through the preserve.

“And why should I do that?”

“Because I’m going to be hanging around for a long time, and I want to know you.”

“If you’re going to be hanging around, won’t you get to know me anyway?”

“I want to know you how you see you, and then I want to gather my own knowledge. Just play along with it, I haven’t spoken to anyone in forever.”

“You haven’t been dead that long, stop being dramatic.”

“If I could touch you, I would punch you in the face.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely a Hale then.”

She grinned.

“So, go on. Tell me all about Stiles Stilinski.”

“What do you even want to know? My name isn’t actually Stiles. I’m an only child. My mom died when I was eight. My dad is Sheriff Stilinski, and my best friend is Scott McCall. I have ADHD and take Adderall for it, but often take higher than the recommended dose. I drive my mom’s old Jeep and I’ve crashed it trying to save people’s lives at least 5 times since I turned sixteen. I have harbored an intense crush on Lydia Martin since 2nd grade when Mrs. Pierce sat us next to each other. That didn’t last long, because I was so enamored by Lydia even then. I never paid attention because I was just so in love with Lydia Martin and how brilliant she was and I had already been diagnosed so they changed my seat again. But the seed had been sown, and I was already head-over-heels in love with her. What else?”

“First kiss?”

“Scott.”

“No way!”

“What? Your first kiss wasn’t with your best friend?”

“Ew, no! My best friend was Derek, honestly. I’m not about to kiss my brother, thank you very much.”

“Who was yours then?”

“This kid in fifth grade,” Laura said with a fond smile. “Daniel Danielson.”

“You’re kidding.”

“What?”

“And I thought _my name_ was ridiculous! Daniel Danielson? Jesus. That poor kid.”

“Your name is Stiles Stilinski, how is that worse than Daniel Danielson?”

“Actually,” Stiles said, glancing around. “If you were listening, I said my name isn’t actually Stiles.”

“It’s not?”

“No.”

“Then what the hell, Stilinski? Come on, tell me. What’s your name?”

“Don’t laugh.”

“Why would I laugh?”

“Because everyone always laughs.”

“I promise, on my own grave, that I will not laugh.”

Stiles sighed and looked at her. “It’s Szczepan.”

Laura tried, he had to give her credit for that. She tried not to laugh, but after a second of war within herself, she snorted and burst out laughing.

“I’m sorry. But what? What was that? What language even is that?”

“It’s Polish. My mom was born in Poland, came here when she was very young. Her dad died of cancer, so she named me after him.”

“Your mom,” Laura said softly. “She died, didn’t she? When you were young? I heard about that. Mrs. Stilinski was a big part of the community.”

“Yeah, she was,” Stiles said. “She went to every board meeting and PTA meeting and whatever else she could do while still being a professor at Beacon Community. She worked at the Soup Kitchen at St. Paul’s every Monday night. She was practically a saint.”

Laura looked like she wanted to hug him or console him, but she didn’t pity him like everyone else had. She knew how it weighed to lose someone so close, someone so special to you, and while she wanted to make it better, she didn’t pity him for it. He loved her for that.

“She tutored kids, too,” Laura added. “She tutored me in history. Do you remember that?”

“You came to our house every Thursday, right? She loved all of her students, but I think the kids she tutored from the high school were her favorite. She got to know them, really got to know them, and she loved them the best. She used to go on about how well you were all doing, and how amazing you were.”

“She was really nice. I passed biology because that woman.”

Stiles snorted.

“My mom was awful at biology. Why would you trust her with your biology grade? I wouldn’t trust my mother with anything science related. She was a dual History and English major with a minor in psychology. She was _awful_ at science.”

“I still got the highest grade in the class, though, awful or not.”

Stiles smiled. His mother was well-known throughout the county to be _the_ tutor. If your kid was failing a class, you took them to Claudia Stilinski, and she whipped them into shape and they were the best student in class. Stiles wasn’t sure how she did it, because his mother didn’t yell, she wasn’t strict, and somehow she encouraged you to do your best without pushing you. It was bizarre, but Claudia was a miracle worker if Stiles had ever seen one.

“Anyway, is there anything else you’d like to know?” Stiles asked, drawing his attention away from the memory of his mother. It was the most he’d spoke of her or thought of her in years, and while it hurt, it didn’t ache all the way down into his toes like it used to. He would always love and miss his mother, but it wasn’t as prevalent as it normally was. He didn’t know if that was good or bad.

“I don’t really know.”

They continued on in silence all the way back to the school, Stiles glancing around cautiously for the hunters before leading Laura to the Jeep.

“This is your car?”

“Not all of us have the Hale fortune to buy us Camaros,” Stiles replied, climbing into the driver’s seat. Laura simply materialized through the door and settled into the passenger seat. “Besides, it was my mom’s and, it’s kind of hard to think about getting another car. She and Dad brought me home from the hospital in this piece of shit.”

“Okay, I won’t make any cracks about the Jeep.”

Stiles drove out of the parking lot with his new acquaintance at his side. Laura reached for the radio knob and flicked it on, music flooding through the speakers. It was an old, popular song and they sang to it loudly, the volume so loud that the car vibrated with it. Laura was a much better singer than Stiles, managing to actually stay on pitch while Stiles just wailed along. It was nice, though. Laura laughed as Stiles danced enthusiastically in his seat at a red light, the car beside him giving him an odd look, and it was just really easy. Stiles obviously didn’t have any siblings, but this is what he assumed having a sister would be like.

When the song ended, Laura turned the radio down and shifted in her seat to look at him.

“Let’s play a game,” Laura said.

“A game?” Stiles asked, turning down his street.

“Yes, I get bored very easily, and since you can hear and see me, you must entertain me. So, a game.”

“Okay, what game?”

“Truth,” Laura said definitively. “Do you know what that is?”

“No, can’t say I know what that is.”

“What was your childhood even _like_?”

“I’m a boy, an only child, and up until a year ago, I only had one friend, also a boy, also an only child, also only had one friend. We mostly played video games and insulted each other.”

“You poor child. Okay. Here are the basic rules, I’ll ask you  a question, you answer the question, and then you ask me a question, and so on and so forth.”

“What if I don’t want to answer the question?”

“Normally, you can pass and ask me a question, and if I answer it, I win, but if I don’t, you win… but I don’t like those rules so we’re just going to ignore those. How about, we get one pass, and if we use that up, we have to do something ridiculous the next time? Yeah?”

“Sure, Laura.”

“Awesome! Is this your house?” she asked as Stiles pulled into his driveway.

“Laura, you’ve been here.”

“I was a freshman, Stiles. It was a very long time ago,” she retorted with an obnoxious, Hale-patented roll of her dark green eyes.

“Hey, I don’t know. I was a kid, and I was hyped up on the wrong medication most of the time.”

Laura shrugged.

“I’ll go first,” she said decisively as Stiles stepped out of the Jeep and wearily walked towards the door. She followed along, Stiles checked, with her feet not even touching the ground as she did.  “Oh! I’ve got one! If you had to live in seclusion for six months, what six items would you bring?”

“Oh, shit. I don’t know,” Stiles said, unlocking the door slowly. “I don’t even, you jumped straight to the most difficult question, didn’t you?”

“I’ve had time to think about these things. Are you going to answer or not?”

“Yes, give me a second!” Stiles protested.

“Stiles, is that you?” the Sheriff called out, peeking out from the office door. “Who are you talking to?”

Stiles stuck his head out the door and looked around for the truck, or the cruiser.

“Where’s your car?” Stiles asked, returning inside the house and pulling the door shut, with Laura still in the doorway. She let out an indignant yelp and cursed at him.

“It’s in the shop.”

“What happened?”

The truck was never _in the shop_. The Jeep was in the shop because it was old as fuck and held together by sheer force of will, but the truck was relatively new.

“Nothing, there were just some punks,” the Sheriff replied. “It’ll be fixed by morning, which reminds me, I need a ride to the shop to pick up the truck. Would you mind dropping me off on your way to school?”

Stiles stared for a second before shaking his head, “Yeah, no, that’s fine. I’m going to do my homework. Do you want me to make dinner tonight?”

“That’d be good, yeah. Thank you,” the Sheriff said with a stifled yawn. “I have some paperwork to get done, just holler when it’s done.”

“Sure thing.”

Stiles bounded up the stairs and into his room, Laura following behind without a word. He shut the door behind her, even though she could walk through it, and flopped onto his bed.

“Okay, so, six things I would bring with me into seclusion for six months? My comic collection, my iPod, the bestiary, a Latin translator, a year’s worth of pudding cups, and probably an art set.”

“An art set?”

“Yeah, I don’t know if you ever saw them, but my mom was a small-time artist. She used to paint, and draw, and whatever. When I was a kid, she bought me an art set for my birthday because I wanted to be just like her. I wasn’t half bad, actually, for being six years old. I stopped when she died, because it hurt too much. I think I’d like to take that back up, just to see if I’m still decent at it, or I’m complete shit.”

Laura was smiling.

“That’s nice, Stiles. Okay, your turn.”

“Okay, what calms you down when you’re upset?”

“Good one. I used to get really upset when I was younger, over simple, stupid stuff, and my mom was great at calming me down.”

“Because she was your alpha?”

“No, just because she knew me, knew what upset me, knew how to deal with me when I was distraught. She made me focus on everything good, made me push what was wrong out my mind until I could deal with it, and even after she died, and I became the alpha, I hung onto that. That’s what calms me down. Memory of my mom.”

Stiles nodded and reached for his bag, dragging it onto the bed with him.

“Your turn.”

“Okay! What is the worst book you have ever read?”

“Oh, uhm, what was the thing called? I read it for 9th grade English class. Oh! Of Mice and Men, I fucking _hated_ that book. And the twelve projects we did on it. It was awful.”

He unzipped the bag and pulled out his stack of books and papers, sighing at the work ahead of him.

“What did you collect as a kid?” he asked, starting on his English homework.

“Don’t laugh.”

“I can’t make any promises.”

“Stiles.”

“You laughed at my name, Laura.”

She sighed. “Wolf figurines.”

Stiles paused and looked at her.

“Come again?”

“You heard me, you little shit. Don’t make me repeat it.”

“I can’t believe you collected wolf figurines. You’re a werewolf, Laura. An actual, real life werewolf.”

“I understand that, but we don’t transform fully until puberty. I liked wolves, and I collected different wolf figurines. Don’t make me hurt you, because I’m pretty sure I can.”

Stiles chuckled.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll let you off the hook for that one.”

It continued back and forth, each asking and answering questions while Stiles worked on his homework. Stiles learned that Laura’s favorite board game had been Monopoly (she won every time, apparently), she was a socks kind of gal, her worst habit was biting her nails, and her favorite sports team was actually the New York Yankees (a fact she said Cora and Derek mocked her mercilessly for).

Stiles told her about how his favorite holiday was Thanksgiving growing up because both his parents were home and they visited Grandpa Stilinski in Idaho, and sometimes they’d call Grandma Kois and she’d rattle on about how her baby Szczepan was growing up in mixtures of broken English and perfect Polish. He told her about how his earliest memory is of his father strapping him into his car seat when he was about 4 years old, and Stiles asked him when they were going to see Grandma Stilinski again because he missed her, and the Sheriff having to explain that she had passed away, and they wouldn’t be able to see her again.

“That’s so sad,” Laura said with a sympathetic coo. Stiles shrugged.

“We weren’t close, or anything. My dad’s parents lived in Idaho, so we never really saw them, but I remember just feeling sad because my dad was sad.”

Stiles closed his last textbook, finished with his homework and sitting back with a sigh.

“Want to help me make dinner?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Stiles kept his voice down as they continued their question game, Laura asking what his favorite smell was, and Stiles asking what Laura’s favorite memory was, then Laura asking what was one thing his father didn’t know, and Stiles countering with what was one thing that Derek didn’t know about Laura.

Together they made chicken chimichangas (Laura’s idea, and Laura’s recipe), with a side of rice and tossed salad. It was nice having someone there, nice having someone around to talk to.

“Do you like ghost stories?” Laura asked as Stiles brought the salad bowl out of the cupboard.

“Laura, I’m living a ghost story.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, Stilinski.”

“Yeah, okay, I like ghost stories. I always have, I guess. I like learning about supposedly haunted buildings, and interesting little facts about things like ghosts or spirits.”

“Well, you have proof now,” Laura said, gesturing to herself in a flail of motion.

“I kind of assumed ghosts were real when I found out werewolves were real. Once that door was opened, I couldn’t imagine that anything wasn’t real.”

“Makes sense,” Laura agreed.

The Sheriff stumbled into the kitchen, grumbling under his breath about damn misdemeanors and those fucking Jenkins boys and something about protocol.

“Dinner’s almost done,” Stiles said, shooting Laura a look while the Sheriff busied himself with the coffee pot. “How’s paperwork going?”

“Almost done,” he said finally as the coffee pot began to spit and gurgle to life. “The Jenkins boys got into some trouble again this week.”

“Are they what happened to the truck?” Stiles asked, tossing the salad together while his father got out plates and silver ware. Laura pulled herself up onto the counter and watched them without a comment, smiling softly.

“Yeah, they’re what happened to the truck.”

“That sucks, what’d they do to it?”

“Slashed the tires and they siphoned the gas out of it, in front of the station. Right there, where there are cameras. I’m not even mad about them damaging the truck, it’s just that they’re so stupid about it. It’s like they want to get caught.”

“Well, their mom is never home,” Stiles said, moving the pan of chimichangas to the dinner table. “And their dad is kind of a dick.”

“Language.”

“Right, my point is, I think they _want_ to be caught, so maybe their parents will actually pay some sort of attention to them,” Stiles answered, grabbing the pan of rice next and then grabbing his glass of water from the counter.

The Sheriff just looked at Stiles for a moment.

“When did you grow up, kid? Just last year you hated those boys, begged me to put them in jail.”

“They’ve had it rough enough,” Stiles replied. He’d seen the way Jakob Jenkins flinched during lacrosse practice whenever Coach Finstock yelled (which was all the time), and he’d seen Christoph comforting Jakob afterwards, overhearing their conversation. “They just want someone to notice that they exist, and not just to yell at them.”

The Sheriff looked impressed.

“You’d make a great cop,” he said. Stiles tried not to let the pride bloom too much in his chest; his life wasn’t easy enough to just become a cop.

“Yeah, let’s just eat, okay?”

 

-&-

 

Dinner was boring for Laura, apparently. She couldn’t talk to Stiles, and Stiles couldn’t talk to her, so she busied herself elsewhere while Stiles and his father talked and ate.

“Go finish your paperwork, Dad. I’ll get the dishes.”

The Sheriff clapped Stiles on the back affectionately and headed back into his office. Laura popped her head, and just her head, through the back door. Stiles couldn’t help but appreciate just how gorgeous the Hales were. She was practically a female Derek, with thick, dark hair and green eyes, hers darker than his, with long, lean muscles and a proud tilt to their chin.

“Coast clear?”

“Yeah, come on out, Laura.”

She swept back in.

“That’s good, I was bored.”

“You’re always bored,” Stiles countered, filling the sink up with dish water.

“I’ve been dead for a year with no one to talk to; of course I’m always bored. Sue me!”

“I can’t, you’re dead, remember?”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Don’t banter at me when I’m irritated with you.”

“Why are you irritated with me? What did I do?”

“You’re living, and you have a father who loves you, and you can talk to more than one person, and you’re not _dead_!”

“Laura.”

“I hate that I’m dead, I really do. I can’t help Derek through his emotional constipation, and I’ll never hug Cora again. I’ll never beat the hell out of Peter for what he did to me. I’ll never be able to kiss anyone again, or have the best orgasm of my life! I only have you to talk to, Stiles, and you have so many other people!”

“Lau-”

“And now I sound like some needy girlfriend who can’t let their boyfriend have friends, but that’s what it feels like. You’re my only friend, and you’re just some dumb kid who accidentally stumbled on werewolves.”

“Hey!”

Laura’s eyes filled with tears and she threw herself onto the ground, and just started to cry, self-loathing blubbers shaking her body.

“I was always the strong one. I was alpha-material, after all. I had to be strong, and I had to be witty, and smart, and sure of myself, and I had to be everything that Derek and Cora weren’t, and I had to look after the babies, and behave myself, and I didn’t get to have friends, or be on the basketball team. I wasn’t even allowed to date, because I was going to be alpha one day, that meant I had to stand strong on my own without anyone beside me, because that’s what the pack needed, but what about what I needed, Stiles?”

Stiles chewed nervously on his lip, hands dripping soap on the linoleum. He wiped his hands on a dish towel and sinking beside her. He cautiously reached out and wrapped his hand around her shoulder, firm and tangible, to draw her close. She tucked herself into his side and cried.

“I’ll never have a husband, or have pups, and I’ll never feel the moon’s pull, and I won’t run with my pack and have them know I’m there, and all because Peter went crazy looking for power.”

 Stiles ran his hand through her hair as she continued listing the things she could never do, and it was a long list. He held her because he couldn’t think of what else to do. She was dead, that was the short and long of it. He couldn’t _fix_ that.

“I’m sorry,” she finally sobbed, clutching his t-shirt and wiping her tears on it. It left a mark.

“Don’t you dare be sorry,” Stiles said gently, tilting her head up to look at her. “You have had a shitty time, I understand that, and you have been expected to be okay through it all, because that’s what alphas do, that’s what alphas in training do. But you’re neither one of those now, Laura. You can be selfish, you can cry about stupid things because you feel like you need to cry, you just can, and you don’t need to apologize to me about being human, ever.”

Her lower lip stuck out and wobbled as she sniffled before she flung her arms around him in a hug. He rested a hand on the small of her back, rubbing gentle circles.

“You’re my new best friend, Szczepan Stilinski!”

He kissed the side of her head, holding her close as he said, “as if there was any doubt of that before.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Laura. I do. She's my favorite character without having been an actual character on the show, and I like that she can be anyone in fics, so here's some beautiful Laura-ness.  
> Find me on Tumblr, packyourbagsrightnow.tumblr.com for Teen Wolf feels, and pictures of puppies. :)


	7. 6-

Laura pretty much followed him around everywhere. She went to school with him and made comments about his teachers, his classmates, and even about what he was learning. She went to the store with him when he went to buy groceries, knowing that if his father went, he would regret it. She helped him pick out new, but healthy dinner meals that he hadn’t thought of before. She went to lacrosse practice with him and mocked his teammates while he attempted not to laugh at her impressions- his favorite was of Greenburg, followed quickly by Coach.

And when Stiles heard the screaming, she kept him in place, reminded him that they weren’t real and just to breathe through it. She talked him through what he knew was the beginning of a panic attack when the screaming started to echo in his head and wouldn’t let him go.

She was there when his nightmares startled him awake and all he could do as defense was cry. She told him stories, about Derek as a kid, about her pack, about her time in New York. She spoke gently, talking to Stiles like he might bolt if she was too loud. She eased his mind off the pounding in his chest, the ache deep down to his bones and made him laugh when he just wanted to give up on ever being happy.

He was the only one who could see Laura.

He was the only one who could hear Laura.

Everyone could see Stiles.

Everyone could _hear_ Stiles.

He got weird looks when he choked down a chuckle when Laura made a snide comment about his trigonometry teacher, an old broad that taught and apparently tortured Laura for all of high school. He got weird looks when he accidentally replied to Laura’s Truth question out loud instead of writing it down like they had been doing during his classes.

“Stilinski!” Coach barked as Stiles jammed his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing at Laura during Economics. “What are you doing?”

“Uhhh,” Stiles stuttered out in reply.

“You know what, I don’t wanna know. Just stop doing it.”

“Yes, Coach.”

Laura was hysterical, folded over in half as she giggled. Stiles shot her a look which made her laugh harder. He let out a slow breath and tried to focus on what Coach was teaching. His head was swimming with the sound of Laura’s laughter and Coach’s lecture, then the echoing sound of someone screaming for mercy. He pressed his hands to his ears, trying to block out it all.

“Stiles,” Laura breathed from beside him. “Is it happening again?”

Stiles couldn’t even find it in himself to nod because that damn screaming was getting closer, the person pounding down the hall, running for the life, and Stiles just wanted to do the same. Their footsteps were irregular, stumbling, and he found himself breathing at the same time, and then barely breathing at all. They were crying, he could hear it in their shouts for help. He wanted to help, but he couldn’t. They were echoes, ghosts from the past. He could not help them any more than he could help himself.

“Stiles.” That voice did not belong to Laura. He was pulled up out of his seat and dragged out of class into the hall where he pushed himself into the cold metal of the lockers to ground himself. He sank to the floor, hoping that maybe the world would stop spinning if he was locked in place. But the hallway only made it worse. He was closer to the screaming. “Stiles, you need to breathe.”

“I can’t,” he gasped out, keeping his eyes clamped tight. What if he could see them, like he could see Laura?

“Yes, you can,” Laura soothed. “It’s okay. Stiles, they can’t hurt you.”

“It’s too much,” he gasped out. “I can’t handle this.”

“Stiles, what’s going on?”

“Szczepan,” Laura said gently. “Everything seems awful right now, but the screaming will stop, the ghosts will fade away. You just have to keep breathing so you see it.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Please, Stiles, for me. Just take a deep breath.”

Stiles opened his eyes and looked at Laura, crouched beside him and inhaled slowly and deeply for 7 counts and breathing out slowly for 11. He had to talk to a grief counselor after his mother died, and he’d admitted that he was having panic attacks. The counselor, a mostly unhelpful frumpy woman, gave him this technique, and while it didn’t always work, it did help more than any other technique.

He kept breathing, keeping his eyes on Laura and willfully blocking out the sound of the echo’s screams. When he settled back, his back against the locker, he looked to the other person. Allison.

“How did you,” he started to ask. She shrugged.

“I dunno, I just noticed. I’ve been worried about you for a while. You’ve been acting different. I didn’t mention it to anyone, because I wasn’t sure, but this time, I’m sure.”

“Who is this one?” Laura asked, sitting back now that Stiles had relaxed enough to breathe normally and speak.

“Allison,” he replied. Allison looked between Stiles and the space where Laura was, eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“What is going on? People keep catching you talking to yourself. You lose focus all the time. You have bags under your eyes. And you just don’t look alright, Stiles.”

“She’s right, though.”

He glared at Laura.

“What? You can _see_ me, Stiles! That’s a sign that you’re not alright! And you’ve been having nightmares and you can’t focus. Maybe you should share this with more than just me?”

Stiles let out a sigh. He knew when he was being ganged up on, and when he was defeated.

“Remember when Scott and I went out into the woods, we told you that we didn’t find anything?” Allison paused for a second and then nodded. “Well, see, we lied.”

“No shit,” Laura grumbled.

“Shut up, Laura. I’m telling a story,” he said. Allison looked at him, alarmed. “So, we found this circle of dead trees and literally nothing was living, and I thought it was a good idea to walk into it? I couldn’t help myself, like, I was pulled into it. I don’t know, but there was this witch, and I insulted her by not leading her to Lydia, and she hit me in the back with some kind of spell, or curse.”

“You’re serious,” Allison deadpanned.

“I’m serious. See, uhh,” Stiles scratched nervously at his hair and looked to Laura for help. She shrugged unhelpfully. “It caused these side effects. I don’t sleep well; I’m woken by nightmares every night. I can’t focus, even worse than before. I can hear people screaming when they’re not, and I’m starting to think that it’s the people that have died here, especially in the school. I can feel people’s deaths, experience them like they’re happening to me or I was there. That’s only happened once, actually. And, mostly, I can see… ghosts. In fact, I can see one right now. Say hi, Laura.”

“Laura,” Allison repeated.

“Laura Hale,” Stiles supplied. “Laura, this is Allison Argent.”

“Argent,” Laura growled.

“Down, girl. She’s a good guy.”

“How long has this been happening?” Allison asked.

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

“A couple of weeks. The ghost thing is new. I picked Laura up that day we had to run from the hunters and found ourselves in the Hale house.”

“Picked me up,” Laura scoffed. “You make it sound like I’m a cheap date.”

“No one thinks you’re a cheap date, Laura.”

“You passed out that day,” Allison said. Stiles nodded.

“Yeah, I did. It gets to be too much sometimes. But, when I woke, there was Laura. And Laura’s been pretty great so far.”

“Awe, you little softie,” Laura cooed. “I knew I liked you.”

“Why haven’t you told anyone? Scott, Deaton, Derek?”

“You want me to tell Derek, the king of angst and man-pain that his older sister who died is still on this plane of reality and that I can see her and talk to her?”

Allison hummed. “Yeah, good point.”

“And Scott would just worry, and Deaton, I don’t know. He confuses me mostly.”

“If this is something more serious, Stiles,” Allison began.

“I don’t think it is. I said something that night, about her being dead wrong, and she just sort of chuckled and said nice word choice. I think she’s torturing me now for giggles, with the dead.”

“What if we can fix it?” Allison asked.

“I would love that, Alli, really. I would. But then Laura would be alone again,” he said looking at the ghost. She smiled at him. “I can handle the screaming, and the inability to focus and all sorts of things, if that means Laura doesn’t have to be alone.”

“You’re a great guy, Stiles,” Allison said with a grin. “Let me help you. Maybe there’s a way to get rid of one without the other.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think it works that way.”

“Let me help, Stiles. You can’t go through this alone.”

“He has me, _Argent_!” Laura grumbled, even though Allison couldn’t hear her. He looked between the two and let out a weary sigh. Allison was right, even with Laura as a comfort, he wasn’t handling this well. He was barely handling it at all.

“Yeah, but if this leads to me not being able to see Laura, I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“Deal,” Allison said. “Come on, let’s get back to class before Coach sends someone for us.”

 

-&-

 

Stiles and Laura followed behind Allison in his Jeep over to her apartment after school. He’d made some excuse about having to go see his dad so he couldn’t hang out with Scott that night, and booked it out of the school. It was a flimsy excuse, and Scott was probably worried about him, which he had every right to be.  

“We shouldn’t trust an Argent,” Laura chimed in as they drove through the town center.

“We can trust Allison. Her and her dad, they’re not normal hunters. They have their own code, and they protect people. They’ve saved my life many times, and I owe them. We can trust them, Laura.”

“They’re _werewolf hunters_ , Stiles. And I am a werewolf.”

“They can’t exactly harm you anymore,” Stiles pointed out.

“They can harm _you_ , though, which I am trying to avoid.”

“Laura, we can trust them,” he urged.

“You trust them, Stiles. I’ll stand back and be wary.”

Stiles nodded, knowing that Hales are stubborn and hard-headed.

“Okay.”

He pulled into the parking spot beside Allison’s car and shut off the Jeep.

“Do you trust me?” he asked quietly.

“Of course I do,” Laura replied immediately. “You’ve been nothing but kind to me since we met, and yeah, that was only a couple days ago, but I trust you, I trust you completely. Why?”

“Because we are about to walk into the home of a hunter, and I need you to trust me to be able to work with them, without you butting in every couple of minutes and without you dragging me out of there.”

“I’m not going to _drag you out of there_ , Stiles. That would be overreacting.”

Stiles hummed.

“Just, promise me.”

“Fine, I promise.”

“Good, now come on. We should get inside.”

Stiles climbed out of the Jeep, leaving his bag in the backseat and heading inside. He’d been to Allison’s apartment before, rarely but he had been there. It was much less scary not that everyone had, mostly, chilled out. It was still kind of scary because Stiles had seen the arsenal of weapons hidden in the Argent household, and had seen firsthand how skilled with almost all of those weapons the Argents were. Allison was waiting by the door when he got out of the elevator.

“Perfect timing!” she said, grabbing his hand and dragging him into the apartment. Laura snorted behind him and followed as Stiles was hauled into Chris Argent’s office. “I called my dad and asked him to get out as many relevant books on this sort of thing as he could from the database.”

“The database?” Stiles asked, glancing at Laura who had taken up residence on an end table.  She shrugged.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just a thing.”

“A thing I want to know about,” Stiles answered.

Allison leveled him with a look telling him to drop it or else, and those eyes meant it. The Argents were dangerous creatures you did not disturb if you could help it.

“Okay, just a thing. I don’t want to know about it at all. How do you want to do this? Where should we start?”

“Well, here’s the deal. He stacked them in accordance of relevance. So, this end of the desk,” she said gesturing to the end closest to the door, “is the most relevant, and most likely to be of any use, and it progresses until this end which is vaguely relevant, barely worth a look but hey, you never know.”

“That’s, okay. That works. Let’s get started.”

Allison handed him a book as she settled into a chair on one side of the desk, taking her own book. He sank down into a seat on the other side and cracked open the seemingly ancient spine.

About ten minutes later, Laura let out an angry sigh.

“Nope, I’m going to haunt Derek for a while. Stiles, I’ll meet you back at your house later,” Laura grumbled, before heading out the apartment wall.

“Bye, Laura,” Stiles called out and turned the page.

“Okay, isn’t it weird seeing the ghost of Laura Hale?” Allison asked, snapping her book shut. Stiles carefully shut his own and set it on the desk.

“We’ve been through so much weird shit, Allison, that I’m not even sure if I can identify if something is actually weird. It’s just, whatever, I’ve seen worse at this point.”

“But, I mean, you found her dead body.”

“Half of her dead body,” Stiles corrected. “It’s hard making the fact that I can see her and talk to her and joke around with her coincide with the fact that I found half of her dead body. It’s two separate incidents, and that’s probably the worst part.”

“You can’t fall in love with her,” Allison warned.

“I’m not going to fall in love with her!”

“Stiles, you have a thing for falling for unavailable women. Lydia, Cora, Derek,” she said. “Why not round out the set with Laura?”

“First of all, you just called Derek an unavailable woman, and I love you for that. And secondly, I’m not going to fall in love with her. She’s a great friend, and while Scott is a gift to the world, she’s there.”

“And Scott isn’t?”

“This is going to sound awful, but Scott has his attention divided, you know? He’s got his job, and his mom, and Isaac, and the pack, and schoolwork, and I don’t want to add to that with my stupid problems. Laura’s there, and I don’t know, she’s just always there.”

“He’d listen, you know,” Allison said gently.

“I know he would. He’d burn down the world to help me through this, but I don’t want him to. He’s got so much on his plate, and I don’t want to distract him from that.”

“It’s not your job to decide what he is or isn’t distracted by.”

“I don’t want to have to make him choose when I can handle this on my own.”

“First of all, you’re barely handling it. You had a panic attack in the hall today,” Allison said. “You hear the screams of people who have died in this town. You can see and talk to ghosts. You feel people’s deaths. That is not handling it. And secondly, you have me and Laura right beside you. You aren’t alone. But Scott deserves to know what’s going on with his best friend.”

Stiles let out a slow breath.

“I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Stiles,” Allison said gently. “You would want him to tell you.”

Stiles groaned, because of course he would. If the situation were reversed, he would want Scott to let him help, to let him at least know.

“I’ll tell him soon, okay? Let’s just see if we can get rid of it, at least.”

Allison nodded after a beat.

“Do you want pizza?” she asked.

“If you order me pizza, I will love you forever, no joke. I would literally love you forever. You don’t even understand. I would kiss the ground and have your babies.”

“Can’t have pizza in your house because your dad will eat it?”

“Yes, so I haven’t had decent pizza outside of the caf in weeks, and I am dying, Alli. Literally. I can feel myself wasting away from the void of pizza in my life.”

“You called me Alli.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Stiles, we’ve known each other for over two years and you’ve never called me Alli.”

“Yes, I ha- No, you’re right. I haven’t. I guess we’ve just never hung out like this, without the imminent threat of death hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles. We don’t even really know each other, if you think about it.”

Allison paused.

“You know what, you’re right. Come on,” she said, standing up and rounding the desk. She dragged Stiles out of the office and into the living room. “We’re just going to hang out like friends, no supernatural nonsense, no weird boyfriend drama, no interruptions, just you, me, and that giant shelf of movies.”

“And pizza?” Stiles asked, looking over Allison’s head at the shelf of movies beside their equally giant flatscreen television.

“And pizza. Whatever toppings you want.”

“You’re the best. Can I marry you?”

“Don’t add me to your list of unavailable women, Stiles. I don’t like being on lists with Derek Hale. It makes me uncomfortable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr for massive amounts of Teen Wolf spazzing and puppies, packyourbagsrightnow.tumblr.com  
> And I would make that a link if I knew how.


	8. 7-

Sleep used to come so easily to Stiles. He could fall asleep anywhere. It was a superpower or something, falling asleep stretched out over hospital chairs or his face smushed against the floor with his legs on his bed. He could fall asleep _anywhere_. His therapist told him that it was a normal thing to happen to families of hospital patients, and he was inclined to agree. When his mother was sick, well, he got used to sleeping sideways across chairs at her bedside. He got used to just stretching out anywhere and take a quick cat nap, whether it was on the bench during lacrosse games or at the lunch table between bites of horrible excuses for food served by the cafeteria staff. He was good at it, just slipping off to sleep and staying asleep in the weirdest position, no matter how uncomfortable.

As of late, however, Stiles was racked with insomnia and when he did get to sleep, horrible nightmares that made him wish he had insomnia. It left him even more exhausted than if he hadn’t slept at all.

He started to see a face in his dreams, a horribly disfigured face looming over the bodies of his friends and family. It started off the same every time; Stiles would be walking through the woods, just casually as if dozens of horrible things hadn’t happened to Stiles in those woods. He would stumble into a clearing, and there it would be, that face, shrouded in dark clothes and it would sneer menacingly at him. It stood over the bodies of Scott, Allison, Lydia, Isaac, the rest of the pack, over his father and mother, over Melissa and Deaton, over his teachers, over Heather and Tara, over Deputy Parrish.

“Always too late to the party, Stiles,” it would hiss. “You’ll never be able to save them.”

Stiles was frozen in place, feet seemingly glued to the forest floor. The creature stalked towards him, stepping on the people he cared about as if they were nothing more than inconvenient stones. He tried to back away, tried to turn and run, tried to do anything, but he couldn’t move.

“Oh, little boy, you’re so out of your depth. You just think you have it _all_ figured out, but you don’t, do you? No, you’re just as lost as you were the day Mommy died, aren’t you? And that’s all you are ever going to be. You’re just going to be Stiles Stilinski, lost and alone in a world that just won’t slow down.”

The creature with its slashed up face, huge blue eyes and shrouds of darkness would draw a short, serrated dagger from its hip with one hand and with the other gripped Stiles’ jaw, holding him in place.

“Don’t worry, Stiles,” it snarled, leaning in close and breathing putrid breath in his direction. “This will all be over soon. You can go back to Mommy, and not be lost anymore. Wouldn’t you like that?”

With a swift motion, the creature jammed the knife deep into Stiles’ gut, and he screamed out every time. He woke up, throat sore from screaming, clothes drenched in his cold sweat, chest heaving as Laura hovered near him and the door opened just enough for the Sheriff to peek in.

“You okay, kid?” he would ask.

Stiles would answer the same way, “Yeah, Dad. Just a nightmare. Sorry to wake you.”

“Let me know if you need anything,” the Sheriff would say before stepping out and closing the door.

“You’re going to have to tell him the truth eventually,” Laura said one night. Stiles hadn’t had a decent night of sleep in weeks and he knew she was right. The shadows underneath Stiles’ eyes were becoming more and more noticeable by the day, plus his behavior hadn’t exactly been indicative of a functioning Stiles. The Sheriff was going to figure it out, and he was going to confront Stiles about it and Stiles was just going to be too tired to lie.

“I know,” was all Stiles said.

Laura sat with him until he fell asleep most nights, and other nights when he didn’t even want to try, they’d sit and play dumb games.

“God, I hate chess so much! You’re such an asshole for making me play!” Laura whined as Stiles beat her for the third time. He was used to playing against the Sheriff, and even sometimes Lydia, both of whom whooped his ass without even thinking about it. Scott refused to play, and that was the extent of Stiles’ friends, so of course, Stiles was going to con Laura into a few games of chess while he still could.

“We played Risk at your request, you can suck it up and play a few games of chess, you big baby.”

Laura smirked and conceded because Risk was the dumbest game in the world, and she knew it. They’d almost ended their friendship over a game of Monopoly, and then again a couple days later when Stiles had lain down to Draw 4 cards in a game of Uno.

Then Stiles started to see the face around town, waiting at street corners and standing by doors. Laura never saw it, and Stiles never mentioned it. He didn’t mention the phantom he saw in his dreams, and he didn’t mention when he started to see it when he was awake. He didn’t look at it, not directly. He looked towards it, like he was examining something around it, but never directly at it. That was how Laura had known he could see her. He didn’t want to alert it if he didn’t have to. It didn’t have to know he was aware of ghosts’ existence.

He didn’t know what to do with this information. The face felt familiar, but Stiles couldn’t place it for the life of him.

“Stiles,” Laura said, drawing his attention away from where he was subtly watching the figure drift aimlessly back and forth through the park. There was more than one lost spirit wandering the town, Stiles had learned, but this one was suspicious, and he didn’t mean that just because it was off-putting. “Earth to Stiles.”

“Yeah, sorry, what was that?”

“You okay, kid?”

“You’re starting to sound like my father.”

“I listen in on him sometimes when you’re sleeping, and he has a very specific speech pattern.”

“That’s kind of creepy, Laura.”

“I get bored, okay? I study things, people. Allison has a penchant for tapping her pen, and you have a tendency to chew on them. You and your father both do this thing when you can’t figure out how to say something where you rub your foreheads. Your neighbor has the hots for the Sheriff.”

“Mrs. Guthrie?” Stiles asked with a wrinkled nose.

“No, the other side. Old man, bifocal lenses, sings at the top of his lungs when he gardens in the morning.”

“Mr. Wilkerson?”

“Yeah, that one. Totally wants your dad.”

“That’s just gross.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Stiles! Hey!” a voice called. Stiles turned and found Danny jogging towards him. “Hey! I’m glad I caught you.”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“We have that history project due next week, and you’re my partner.”

“I am?”

“You were there, when it was assigned.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said quietly. He still hadn’t been all there in the past weeks, and he wasn’t sure what was even happening in his classes anymore. The last he checked, they had just started _The Sun Also Rises_ , and Scott told him that they have the major project and essay due in just about a week. “What’s our topic again?”

“Wow, Stiles.”

“Sorry, I haven’t been feeling well.”

Danny went on to explain their subject topic and what the project was and Stiles nodded, his eyes drifting past Danny towards the figure again. He felt like he’d seen it somewhere, but the fact that he couldn’t place it was driving him crazy.

Well, craz _ier_.

“Why don’t we meet at the library tomorrow afternoon? We can work on our project and get it mostly done before dinner,” Danny offered.

“Say yes,” Laura urged. “I want to go to the library. Stiles, don’t fuck this up. Say yes.”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” Stiles said, faking a smile and shooting Laura a look. “Tomorrow right after school?”

“Yeah, alright, that’s settled. I gotta go, though. See you tomorrow,” Danny said before turning and jogging back the way he came, bursting through the disfigured figure as they crossed paths. He didn’t slow down or show any recognition that he felt anything.

“I gotta talk to Allison,” Stiles said, pulling out his phone and jogging away from Danny and the figure. He swiped across the screen to dial Allison’s number and jammed the phone between his shoulder and ear. He fumbled with his keys, trying to get the Jeep’s key into his hand so he could unlock the doors.

“What is going on?” Laura asked, hovering nearby.

“I have a theory.”


	9. 8-

Stiles poured through the Argents’ books again, Allison and Laura standing nearby with twin looks of worry and confusion.

“What exactly are you looking for?” Allison asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Stiles answered.

“Well, that’s helpful,” Laura grumbled.

“I’ll know when I find it, but I can’t, I can’t, y’know,” Stiles said, flailing his hands about.

“Vocalize it?” Allison guessed.

“Yeah, that’s it. I just have this hunch, and I need to see if anyone has ever been in my position.”

“Your position where you were cursed by a witch looking for a banshee and then proceeded to see a dead werewolf Alpha?” Laura asked, a mix of disbelief and teasing in her voice.

“Don’t sass me, Laura. I don’t have the time.”

“You’re awful crabby for a boy on a spree.”

“I’m not on a spree, and I’m not crabby. Go float somewhere else,” he grumbled, flipping determinedly before landing on a page for a moment.

“Wow, you need to get some sleep, Stiles,” Allison said quietly. Stiles couldn’t find it in himself to retort. He couldn’t sleep, that was the problem. He was plagued day and night. He couldn’t sleep or else he saw and felt everyone he even vaguely cared about die, and he couldn’t rest during the day before he saw and felt everyone die whether or not he cared about them. This was his own personal hell.

“Medieval times, purgatory, respect,” Stiles muttered, flipping past theories upon theories of ghost creation and ways to expel ghosts from homes. “Cursed beings!”

“What?” Laura and Allison chorused.

“Ghosts are cursed beings,” Stiles explained. “They’re spirits bound to the earth when they should move on, and only other cursed beings can experience, see ghosts.”

“Okay?”

“Cursed can come in different forms,” he continued. “Ghosts, obviously, are the dead form. Living forms are a bit more difficult to pin down, to define. One of them is genetic, another is accidental, and a few are only caused by direct spell castings.”

“Like what happened to you,” Allison stated.

“Exactly like what happened to me.”

“What’s the cure for curses?”

“Doesn’t say, but there are multiple theories on how to lift a cast curse. They warn against not lifting the curse, no matter how benign it may seem.”

“What happens to cursed beings?” she asked.

“If the curse isn’t lift,” Stiles started, and stopped. He took a deep breath and raised his gaze to look at Laura. “If the curse remains, the cursed will die.”

“Stiles!” Allison gasped, stepping forward and grabbing his hand. “We have to go to Deaton.”

“And what, tell him that I fucked up and got myself cursed, and if I don’t get rid of it in time, I die?”

“He’ll know a way, you know he will.”

“He’s more cryptic than a literal crypt, Alli! And I don’t want-”

“Do not say you don’t want to get rid of the curse. Don’t you even dare, Stiles Stilinski,”  Laura barked. “I will not let you die because I’m lonely.”

Stiles and Laura stared at each other, almost daring the other to look away first.

“Stiles, Scott needs to know,” Allison cut in.

“No, he doesn’t,” he responded, looking away from Laura and towards the hunter. “Allison, I just need a little more time to figure this out. Maybe there’s a way to leave a part of the curse. Or, there has to be something. I won’t leave her alone, I can’t.”

“You and I need to talk,” Laura muttered.

The door to the study opened and Chris Argent stepped in.

“Oh, hello Stiles.”

“Mr. Argent,” Stiles replied, nodding his head respectfully. “Allison, give me a couple of days. I just, I need a couple of days. Please.”

Allison set her jaw but nodded.

“A couple of days,” she agreed.

“If you’re going,” Chris said, rounding the desk and pulling out a thick, wooden box from one of the drawers. “Could you drop this off with Derek?”

“I can do that,” Stiles said, looking towards Laura then at the book he was reading from. “Is it okay if I take this for a while?”

Allison and Chris nodded, and he picked up the box and the book.

“I’ll call you, if I find anything,” Stiles said to Allison and left, glancing to find Laura floating through the desk behind him. They didn’t talk as Stiles led the way out of the Argents’ fourth floor apartment or even after they had stepped out of the elevator.

“We need to talk,” Laura finally said as Stiles unlocked the driver side door to his Jeep. “I can’t let you kill yourself because I might be a little lonely.”

“I’m not going to kill myself, Laura.”

“Stiles. You just read that you will die without lifting the curse, and you don’t want to lift the curse?”

“I know what it’s like to feel all alone, and if I can save you from that, then why the hell not?”

“You will die, and I will be alone anyway. But if you live, even if we can’t talk, I will be able to watch you grow old and be happy, and that will be enough for me. I cannot let you die just because you have some strong sense of loyalty.”

“Laura.”

“Stiles.”

“I’ll find a way to keep you in my life, and I will keep my life.”

Laura smiled and phased through the passenger side door, settling in while Stiles opened his own door. He climbed in and set the box and the book by Laura’s feet.

“I’ll take that, for now. Let’s go see what my baby brother is up to.”

 

-&-

 

Derek’s loft was just as barren as Stiles remembered it to be. There was about three pieces of furniture in the bottom floor; a couch, a bed, and a desk.

“This is sad,” Laura said as Stiles pushed the sliding door shut behind them.

“Derek?” Stiles called out, crossing towards the desk. Ice filled his stomach, stopping him in his tracks. He had seen the aftermath of this moment, attempted to comfort Derek through it, but he hadn’t seen it happen. It was as if he was in everyone’s body at the same time, in Derek’s and Boyd’s, in Jennifer’s and Isaac’s, in the twins’. He could hardly breathe, terrified as Ethan and Aiden forced Derek to the ground and forced open his claws. He could feel the moment Derek’s claws pierced Boyd’s chest, and feel Derek’s overwhelming guilt like a bad taste in his mouth.

He dropped the box, it clattering to the floor beneath him.

Panic, pain, guilt, shock swept through him, bringing him to his knees in the same exact place where Derek had been knelt.

He couldn’t catch his breath.

“Stiles?” Laura grabbed his arm and shook him. “Stiles, you have to breathe.”

He gripped his jeans, trying to find purchase in something. His chest felt tight, like a wound rubber band waiting to snap. His head swam and he couldn’t shake the feeling that nothing would ever be right in the world again.

“What’s going on?”

“I can feel it,” Stiles hissed quietly. “Boyd, and Derek.”

“You just have to breathe through it. You’ll be okay, Stiles. Just, just breathe.”

“You suck at this.”

“How about, if you don’t breathe, Derek is going to come down here and find you freaking out and he’ll find out what you’re trying to hide from everyone, including your father and best friend.”

“How is that supposed to help?”

“I don’t know! But it did, apparently.”

Stiles stopped, and she was right. His chest ached, from lack of oxygen, and his head hurt, from lack of oxygen, but he was breathing shallowly.

“Thank you.”

Laura smiled, pushing her dark hair away from her face. Stiles could see Derek in her, traces of Cora, and as loath as he was to say it, Peter as well. It was unrealistically unfair how attractive the Hale family was.

“Oh, shit, get up,” Laura said, grabbing his hand and yanking him up off the ground. Derek strutted out of the bathroom, dripping wet from a fresh shower with just a towel slung low on his hips. Stiles froze, staring out of shock more than anything.

“Stiles.”

“Hey, I, uhhh,” Stiles replied, brain short-circuiting. He had seen Derek shirtless before, and he had seen Derek wet before, but the combination was doing things to him that he wasn’t aware would happen in such a situation.

“Box, Stiles. The box,” Laura reminded.

“I have something for you,” Stiles said.

“From Argent,” Laura stated.

“A box or something, from Argent. I don’t know, apparently he was too busy or you weren’t high enough on his priority list for him to deliver it himself. Must not be too delicate if I was even made aware of it, whatever. I’m assuming you know what it is, or will once you see it, or yeah. I’m gonna stop talking now.”

Derek looked at him, judgmental eyebrows furrowing while he looked for a box in Stiles’ hands. It was on the floor, so Stiles couldn’t really blame the eyebrows’ judgment.

“Where is it, then?”

Stiles looked down, Derek’s gaze following to the stone flooring where the wood box sat innocently.

“I don’t even want to know,” Derek said, leaning down and scooping the box up with his free hand, the other clutching the towel to his hips.

“We should get out of here,” Laura muttered, nodding towards the loft door.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go now. I’ll see you, I’ll see you around, Derek.”

Stiles turned and hurried out of the loft, sliding the door shut as quickly as he could, ignoring Laura’s equally judgmental eyebrows. Hale eyebrows were stupidly expressive, and he refused to acknowledge their point of view.

“We have to figure out a way to fix this,” Laura said.

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So late. So bad. So sorry.  
> (Also, fun fact, Meghan Ory is my headcanon for Laura.)


	10. 9-

Allison hurried towards Stiles the next day at school, panic and remorse written on her face. Laura was absent, having elected to wander around the woods and try to shift. She didn’t want Stiles to witness her failure.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t, I didn’t mean to, I promise,” she said, barely skidding to a halt in front of him. He took hold of her arms to steady her, grounding her as she took a deep breath instinctually.

“What did you do?”

“I told Scott.”

He dropped his hands and stepped away.

“You promised me a couple of days, Alli.”

“I know.”

“I said I was going to figure this out on my own.”

“I know.”

“If you know, then what the _hell_ were you thinking?”

“It was an accident, I swear! We were talking about you and he asked me why we were spending so much time together and it just kind of slipped out and,” Allison stumbled over her words. She wasn’t the stumbling type.

“What did you tell him exactly?”

“Well, that you were cursed and were seeing ghosts and Laura Hale was haunting you and you were best friends and you will die if you don’t lift the curse.”

“Wow. That is a lot to just accidentally slip out, Alli.”

“Well, it started out with I was helping you research, and then he got curious, and then kept pressing, and it just happened. Once I told him, I just couldn’t stop, and oh, god. Here he comes, I’m sorry!” she yelped and skittered away. Big, bad werewolf hunter with a strong, well-known werewolf hunter lineage runs from Scott McCall, that’s a headline Stiles won’t soon forget.

“Stiles,” Scott said, taking hold of Stiles’ elbow and tugging him into an empty classroom nearby. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not even 8 o’clock and two people have already apologized, both with a tacked on so for emphasis. So, if Allison told you when she wasn’t supposed to, what did _you_ do that warrants emphasized guilt?”

“I’m worried, especially since Allison said you will die without a cure,” Scott said, snatching Stiles’ hoodie sleeve as he tried to back away from Scott.

“Okay, so what’d you do, Scott?”

“I told Derek.”

“You told, you told Derek. _YOU TOLD DEREK!?_ ”

“I’m sorry,” Scott rushed out. “I thought he should know!”

“I don’t even know where to begin on telling you just how stupid and wrong you are! There was a reason I didn’t tell anyone except Allison, Scott! There was a reason I didn’t tell you or Deaton! Derek doesn’t need to carry the weight of his dead older sister as a ghost on top of all the other shit he thinks is his fault! And you don’t need to blame yourself for letting me out into the forest that night. No, don’t give me the puppy eyes, I am not done! This pack cannot handle this kind of pressure right now. Everyone is just starting to relax and I don’t want to fuck that up with my Sixth Sense impression. I see dead people, Scott; it’s not the end of the world.”

“No, it’s just the end of your life,” Scott snarked.

“I’ve got this under control.”

“Do you? Because from what Allison told me, this is the exact opposite of under control. You’re not focusing in class. You’re hearing screaming in the school. You can’t sleep. You keep experiencing people’s deaths as if you were them. That’s not exactly under control.”

“People really need to stop telling me what I can and can’t handle,” Stiles growled.

“We just want you to be safe.”

“I don’t need you to look out for me all the time!”

Scott frowned, eyebrows furrowing together as he stared at Stiles and Stiles stared back. The bell for homeroom rang but they both ignored it.

“Listen,” Stiles started after a minute of uncomfortable, stunted silence, “I’m going to talk to Laura tonight, and we’ll come to a decision about this.”

“You and Laura Hale will come to a decision about whether or not you’ll die? What happened to us always having each other’s backs, always having the other period? When did you stop trusting me with things like this, Stiles? We’re best friends, we’re brothers. We’ve told each other everything since pre-school. If you were to look at a pie chart of my life, only 20% of my life would be spent without you in it. You’re 80% of my life, and you can’t just stop telling me important things like you’re cursed and you’re reenacting Sixth Sense with Derek’s dead older sister.”

Stiles frowned at the floor.

“I don’t mean to leave you out of this, but you’ve got enough to worry about. You’re taking on the world already and barely have time for me as it is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re always busy, and I didn’t want to make you feel like you had to drop everything because I fucked up again.”

“Stiles, you can always tell me if you need help, even if I’m swamped. I would rather drop everything than you have to shoulder something like this alone. You’ve got me, bro. You’ve _always_ got me.”

Stiles couldn’t help himself when he threw himself at Scott, wrapping the Alpha in a monumental hug. If Scott were human, Stiles might have crushed his spleen.

“I’m sorry. I’m an awful friend. You don’t deserve me!”

Scott clung onto Stiles in return and they just stayed that way until the official late bell rang.

“You’re telling me everything!” Scott said, detaching. Stiles grinned.

“Oh, let me tell you!”

-&-

“Sean Connery was the best Bond of all time!” Stiles insisted later that day. Their serious conversation about what to do had devolved very quickly into a bickering match, pop culture edition.

“Oh, please, you summer child, it was totally Roger Moore!”

“You have lost your mind,” he scoffed. “Next you’re going to tell me that you prefer Kirk over Picard.”

“I _do_ prefer Kirk over Picard.”

“I cannot be friends with you, Laura, if you keep spewing this filth,” Stiles said.

“Oh, don’t tease,” Laura mocked, rolling her eyes.

“That’s like preferring the new Star Wars series over the older, more superior series!”

“Well.”

“Laura Hale, you _cannot_ be serious!”

“I’m kidding, Stiles. Of course, I prefer the old trilogy. I would be a fraud to my name if I chose the new.”

Stiles sighed happily and rested his head back against the headboard of his bed.

“I won’t disown you, then. Yet.”

“Boba Fett was shit, though.”

“You’re disowned. That’s it. Get out. I cannot be seen with you on this plane or the next. I refuse.”

“Oh, please, like you have a choice in the matter. I will haunt the shit out of you if I have to. I can have opinions separate from yours, and it doesn’t matter if you agree with me because we are two intelligent, well-researched individuals. We should be able to discuss this rationally without you threatening to disown me every couple of minutes.”

“I have threatened to disown you once.”

“Three times, actua-”

Laura paused and stood up from her seat at Stiles’ desk, moving towards the door when it flung open through her. She let out a disgruntled cry of discontent just as her brother, eyes burning blue slammed through the door frame. He barreled right for Stiles, a predator after his prey.

“I have had it with you, Stiles!” Derek snarled, his face fully shifted and contorted with anger. He grabbed Stiles by the collar of his shirt, yanking him effortlessly off of his bed and slammed him against the wall beside it. Stiles let out a yelp of pain, surprised that Derek was so rough. He’d been slammed into many things by Derek but not like this, not with the intent of actually harming him. “You are a disobedient, lying little shit and I cannot put up with you any longer! I tell you to stay, and you go running ahead! I tell you not to go into the forest because it’s potentially dangerous, and you go right on into the forest like you’re the only one who could be hurt by this! Do you know how much trouble you have caused me, caused Scott, the pack? You were cursed by a witch because you couldn’t go five minutes without disobeying, without knowing exactly what was going on!”

Laura grabbed onto Derek’s shoulder and pulled at him, her touch ghosting through him. So much was happening at once, Derek snarling in his face, Laura yelling like Derek could hear her begging, Scott appearing behind everything apologizing profusely like that might help the situation any. Stiles, pinned and trapped with no way out, couldn’t catch his breath. The panic set in quickly, grabbing ahold of him and breaking down his guards.

The feeling swept over him, the pain, dread, the betrayal. He could hear her footsteps through the woods, feel the summer breeze on her skin, smell the familiar scent of _familypackhome_ as she crept through the Preserve at night towards the source. Her ears picked up on every sound from her own breaths and heartbeat to those of the squirrels and rabbits skittering from one tree to the next in search of food and to a steady, familiar heartbeat just a dozen feet from her. She glanced around her, and then back at him. Peter. _Familypackhome_.

“Peter,” she called out, a twig snapping underfoot. He was dressed in a hospital-issued robe and slippers, the same she’d seen him in at the hospital earlier that day. “How did you get out here? It’s Laura. Peter, can you hear me?”

She touched his arm to turn him toward her. He caught her off guard, lunging and bringing her to the ground instantly. She’d been living with her Alpha powers for years and while she was meant to have them, she still hadn’t felt at one with them yet. She fought, trying to get in some sort of hit in return, but she was stunned. This was Peter, her uncle Peter. She couldn’t believe her nose when she followed his scent from the edge of the Preserve, but here he was, standing and responsive enough to attack.

“Peter, no.”

He growled, low and animalistic in her ear before grabbing the back of her head and smashing it into a tree root below them. It was the last thing Laura could recall. Stiles knew there was more having found half of her body. He could feel it as Peter tore into her midsection, separating her two halves.

It was the first time he’d ever felt her death. He’d experienced so many of the sacrifices at the school, experienced the Hale pack, and Boyd, but this was different, personal. This curse was opportunistic, he realized. He should’ve felt her death every minute they spent together, every time they touched, every time she grew near him.

It had waited, waited for the perfect moment.

“Laura,” Stiles sobbed out, collapsing against Derek. He had ugly tears streaming down his face, his forehead pressed against Derek’s chest.

And then, he was sliding down the wall, Derek gone from the room with just Scott and Laura.

“I’m here, Stiles,” Laura said, kneeling between his legs, reaching out and ghosting her hand along his cheek. Her touch was cold, just like the night he’d held her as she cried over her death. It was him crying now. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. Tell me what you need.”

He grabbed her hand and just held on, reassured in the comfort of her hand in his.

“I felt you die,” he whispered sometime later, after Scott had settled outside his door to give them privacy. It wasn’t much, considering Scott could hear everything Stiles was saying, but it was a nice illusion. “I never felt that. It was, it was horrifying. I’ve felt so much death in the past weeks, but I never thought that maybe you would be a part of it. You’re so full of life that I never stopped, never once stopped to consider that you died, that you are dead. That you died feeling scared and betrayed and alone.”

“You know what my last thought was of?”

“No, I don’t experience your thoughts.”

“Derek,” she said gently, “how he’d be alone again. How scared he was going to be. How hurt, and how lonely my little brother would be. He has shouldered so much, you know.”

“I know.”

“From Paige, to Kate, and the deaths of our pack, and then me. God, what must he think of me now? Too stubborn to just stay dead, maybe. Or maybe he feels ashamed that he couldn’t tell I was around still. I don’t know. I regret so much, but not teaching Derek that the worlds’ shortcomings are not his fault is at the top.”

“Are you telling me not to be mad at him in a roundabout, touchy feely kind of way?”

“I’m saying, don’t be too harsh on him. He just found out that his sister and best friend isn’t resting in peace.”

“Yeah, why is that?”

“I don’t know, they don’t just hand you a manual on the afterlife. Unfinished business, maybe. Or maybe it was how I died. Maybe I had such a violent death that I can’t move on.”

“There would be so many ghosts in this town if that were true,” Stiles reminded her. “Beacon Hills is a literal beacon for bad shit. It’s any wonder that people stay here.”

“Are you going to leave? For school?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Stiles, you’re a senior!”

“I know! I’ve applied to colleges all around the country, but I don’t know where I actually want to go. I don’t know if I do want to go. I don’t want to be too far from my dad, because he still needs someone to look after him. And I don’t want to go and not be welcome back, you know?”

“You’ll be welcome here, you know you will. Scott won’t let you not be welcome.”

“And your brother? He almost ripped out my throat just now.”

“He overreacts.”

“You think!?”

Laura snorted and shook her head. “That’s a family trait, actually. Peter, Derek, me, Cora, Granddad, we all used to overreact with the best of them.”

Stiles chuckled, and then yawned halfway through.

“God, I’m tired,” he complained. “Apparently emotions and shit are exhausting.”

Stiles climbed up onto the bed, exhaustion aching in his bones. He didn’t want to sleep alone, but Laura couldn’t sleep. She stayed with him if he didn’t feel safe enough to sleep, but he couldn’t ask her to stay if he was just going to pass out on her.

“Scotty!” he called out. The door opened in an instant, and Scott was in bed with him moments later. Stiles was grateful Scott was attuned to him, always understanding what he needed without Stiles ever having to say a word. In turn, Stiles understood what Scott needed in times where Scott didn’t know himself.

Stiles cast a look towards Laura, who smiled softly at him.

“Go to sleep, I’ll look after you and Scott for tonight.”


	11. 10-

Scott dragged Allison and Stiles, and by extension, Laura, to a pack meeting at Derek’s loft. Stiles didn’t particularly want to go. It was going to be a lot of whining about how Stiles should’ve told them, they were pack, and pack didn’t keep things from one another, and goddamn, Stiles did not want to deal with that. He already knew that there was probably a better way to handle this whole cursed situation than how he had, and he wasn’t keen on going over his mistakes.

Lydia launched a hug at him the second he stepped through the door, clinging to him and burying her head in his chest. Laura let out a startled laugh from behind Stiles. He’d stupidly told her about Lydia and his epic-sized crush on her, so whenever Lydia and Stiles were near each other, Laura mocked him by cooing and making kissy noises at them.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Stiles wrapped her safely in his arms and buried his face into the soft, strawberry-scented hair curled around her neck. He didn’t know what Lydia was sorry for, but if there was anyone in the entire loft that understood, it was the banshee.

“How cute,” Laura chuckled, drifting past them and into the loft. She looked around warily. “Avoid that spot by the stairs, will you?”

Stiles looked up at her and glared.

“You are not helping anything, Laur,” he sniped.

She rolled her green eyes with every ounce of Hale sass Stiles had ever experienced. Lydia drew back, staring up at him.

“So, she’s here?” Lydia whispered.

“I can hear you, you know,” Laura complained, moving to sit on the arm of Derek’s couch. “You might not be able to hear me, but I can definitely still hear you. I lost my life, not my ears.”

Stiles edged around Lydia and moved towards Laura. No matter her snarky comments, no matter her flat and unamused tone, Stiles always felt safer near her.

“Is this the part where you sit me down and tell me I can trust you guys and that I shouldn’t feel the need to keep secrets?” Stiles asked, standing behind the couch. Laura leaned back and rested her head on his arm. He lifted a hand up and absently brushed the hair away from her face. She smiled. He smiled back. “Because I am well aware of that fact, thank you.”

“Sassafras,” Laura chuckled. “I like you. I’ll keep you.”

“This isn’t an intervention, Stiles,” Scott said. Everyone found a seat except Stiles, who stayed standing out of the desire to bolt if necessary. Even Derek had found a seat, albeit the corner and far, far from Stiles. Stiles preferred it that way, especially given that Derek had almost sent Stiles into a panic attack the last time they’d seen each other.

“Feels like one. This seems like a pretty neutral location. You’re all looking at me like I’m pitiful. The minute you start using I statements, and using benefits of seeking help, I’m out of here.”

“Who Googled intervention tips? Stiles Googled intervention tips,” Laura muttered.

“Fuck you,” he shot easily at her.

“I would love to, really. I don’t care how scrawny and young you are, I haven’t gotten laid in _years,_ Stilinski, but there’s a whole astral plane kind of thing separating us.”

Stiles choked as he took a breath, and proceeded to cough through his snorts of laughter.

“How dare you!”

“What? A girl can be desperate,” she said.

“Stiles?” Lydia asked, touching Stiles’ arm. “Stop talking to yourself, please.”

Laura sobered up enough to glare in Lydia’s direction, eyes glowing red as a growl reverberated through her chest. Stiles startled, the sound raising the hairs on his arms and neck, sending a chill of fear through him, the response of prey cornered by a predator.

“Your crush on her is no longer cute. I don’t like this one. Get rid of her.”

“Excuse me,” he said, voice cracking as he sought refuge in the bathroom. He shut and locked the heavy door and tried to calm his nerves. He slid down the wall by the door, holding his knees close to his chest and breathing as evenly as he could manage. Laura was a werewolf, and she was protective of what was hers, but he had never heard her growl like that, and it terrified him.

There was a gentle tap, barely there, at the door, followed by Allison calling out to him.

“Stiles, can I come in? Or can you come out?”

Stiles leaned over and flicked open the lock, allowing Allison inside. She slipped in and sank to her knees by him, pressing the door shut with a soft click of the latch.

“You okay?”

“No. What Lydia said pissed Laura off and Laura was growling and I just had this instinct to run,” Stiles said, pressing his forehead to his knees. “She wouldn’t hurt me, that’s not who Laura is. But, I was so scared. You see this?”

He held up his arm, showing the hairs still raised, his hand shaking as well.

“Whatever that witch hit me with is opportunistic as fuck. I felt Laura die yesterday, when Derek came in and had me up against the wall, and not in a good, sexy time way either. I felt her die for the first time. I felt her confusion and the feeling of betrayal eating away at her when Peter attacked, this walking corpse of a man at that point. I felt everything, the way he ripped her in half like she were a piece of meat instead of his niece. It waited until I wasn’t ready for it, waited until I felt safe enough to not worry about it, and then it ripped into me. And the symptoms, the nightmares and the inability to focus, those come and go as they please. Apparently they brought their friend Cowardice with them this time around,” Stiles rambled. “I hate feeling like this, Alli, like I’m going to fall apart the next time someone looks at me wrong, like I’m just going to combust, or I’m going to shatter. I hate it. I don’t like feeling so, so-”

“Vulnerable?”

“Exactly. It’s bad enough being a human in the middle of a pack of supernatural badasses, but this, god, this takes every single fucking cake ever baked in the history of baked cakes.”

Allison took his hand in hers, shuffled closer, and pressed the gentlest kiss to his temple.

“Let us help you. An entire pack is better than just two pairs of eyes, so we’ll cover more ground, and we _will_ find a way to make you better. I promise you.”

“Promises don’t mean much when you’re up against supernatural forces, Alli. You know that.”

“I’ll owe you a debt,” she said gently. “And a Lannister always pays her debts, right?”

He smiled at her.

“Now, let’s go out there, and agree to let them help us, so you can smile again. Okay?”

“Okay.”

They stepped out together into the loft, Stiles tilting his chin up high so maybe they wouldn’t notice how bad his hands were shaking still.

When he looked around for Laura, she was nowhere to be found.

 

-&-

 

They decided to include Deaton in their search, as well. “They”, of course, meaning Lydia had sighed unimpressed nearby and instructed Scott to call his boss to inform him of the situation as well. Lydia, Stiles always thought, would make an amazing Alpha. Deaton showed up at Derek’s loft an hour after the vet’s closing, toting a box full of books.

“I really wish you would’ve brought this to my attention sooner,” Deaton said, setting the box down on the coffee table and beginning to sort through the books. He handed each person a book, sections already flagged with post-it notes. “Some curses are time-sensitive. If not lifted by a certain time, they become permanent.”

“Stiles read somewhere that curses not lifted would kill him,” Allison said.

“Yes, there’s that too,” Deaton said. Stiles narrowed his eyes and flared his nostrils at the vet. He liked Deaton to a certain extent, but he would be a lot more likeable if he just spoke normally instead of in circles and riddles, sometimes circling riddles. Mostly, he didn’t have enough patience to deal with Deaton’s web of secrets, and Deaton in return didn’t have enough patience to deal with Stiles’, well, everything. That was the story of his life, really.

“Shouldn’t this be as simple as lifting the curse?” Isaac asked. “You know how to do magic, right? Just lift this thing.”

“I’m afraid that it’s not that simple, Isaac,” Deaton said patiently. “I don’t know exactly what curse this witch put on Stiles, and to try and remove the wrong one would be, well, not very good for him. What you need to do is try and match up Stiles’ symptoms to a specific curse, like a medical diagnosis.”

“Besides the seeing ghosts things, what else can you do?” Isaac asked Stiles.

“I can feel how people died, if I’m standing in the right spot,” Stiles said, glancing at the space where Boyd died warily. “I can’t focus, or sleep. I’ve been having nightmares. Uhm, and I can hear people screaming. Constantly.”

Everyone looked up at him at that. He wasn’t sure he’d even told Allison that one.

“Right now?” Lydia asked.

Stiles stopped and then stopped concentrating on blocking the sounds out, and there it was, distant but still anguished.

“Yeah. Right now. There are some other symptoms but they’re generally just passers. Like that day I was a dick to Scott at lunch. And uhm, just now.”

“Just now?” Lydia asked.

“I got really scared, for almost no reason. I keep having panic attacks, but that’s kind of a reaction to everything else. I don’t know if this is relevant, but also, there’s this minor detail. I can touch ghosts. Like, put my hand on them and touch them like they were here. Which, I’ve seen how ghosts, spirits, whatever are with the living, they go right through them. So, there’s that.”

He shrugged and flipped through the book in his lap to the page marked with a yellow post-it. It was a thick, hardcover edition of some ancient folklore anthology.

“This is Latin,” Derek stated, holding up his book. “I can’t read this.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

Deaton took the book from Lydia and then from Derek, switching them. Derek waited until Deaton had left, claiming he was of no more help, and then slipped almost casually out of the room.

Stiles preferred it this way.

 

-&-

 

Five hours later, if they pushed together all of the symptoms from the curses they’d found individually, they had a complete diagnosis. Isaac had found a curse that forced the person into the plane between here and the afterlife, allowing them to walk among the living and the dead, but it didn’t say anything about nightmares, constant screaming, or inattention. Allison had found spells to conjure spirits but not a curse to keep you in communication with them. Lydia had found one with everything, including the ability to sense death, but not communing with the deceased. Scott and Stiles had found pretty close to nothing collectively, and Derek still hadn’t come out to play with the rest of the pack.

Stiles still preferred it that way.

“This is literally getting us nowhere,” Stiles grumbled, slamming the book shut with more force than was probably called for. He was just so sick of getting nowhere for all of his efforts. He got up and paced back and forth through the loft. Anger and frustration boiled in his gut like indigestion, and he wanted, he wanted to _hit_ something.

He lashed out at the brick wall, punching it as hard as he could.

“Stiles!” Lydia and Allison yelped, just as Stiles stifled down a cry and cradled his hand against his chest protectively. It was definitely broken, and the skin was broken along his knuckles. You don’t punch a brick wall and not end up with a broken hand at the least.

“Okay, I’m calling it a night,” Scott said, walking calmly to Stiles’ side and taking his elbow. “Put the books back in the box, and I’ll drop them off at Deaton’s when we’re done at the hospital.”

Each book got put back in Deaton’s box by their respective pack member, except Derek’s. Scott lifted the box as if it were nothing and with the other hand, led a grumbling Stiles out of the loft and to his car.

“What the hell was that?” he asked, depositing the box in Stiles’ trunk and climbing into the driver’s seat. Stiles wanted to protest, but he was smart enough to know that driving with a broken hand was probably not the best idea. “You’re hot-headed, but you’re not _I’m going to punch a brick wall because I’m angry at the world_ kind of hot-headed.”

“I don’t know. I just got so frustrated and I felt like tearing something apart.”

“Could that be another symptom of the curse?”

“One of the black magic curses I found was to bring anger, and discord, and darkness, and hate upon the subject, so it’s possibly a side-effect. I can’t imagine that with what she said, she would curse me just to have a bad time. It’s an interesting array of symptoms, if you think about it. They all go well together, but only because they all suck.”

Scott drove effortlessly, almost without thinking to the hospital, probably having every route to the hospital memorized. Stiles was the same with the Sheriff’s Station, driving there several times a week to drop off dinner to the Sheriff or to just see him if he hadn’t in a while. He imagined it was the same for Scott and Melissa.

Melissa was working when they walked in, Stiles still holding his hand close to his chest in order to avoid bumping it. She hurried out from behind the desk and grabbing his arm gently.

“ _Stiles_ _Stilinski_ , what have you done to yourself?”

“I punched a wall,” he said glumly.

“You punched- oh, Stiles,” she sighed. “I’m going to have to call your father about this, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. I have some things I need to talk to him about.”

 

-&-

 

The Sheriff grounded Stiles on the premise of Stiles not telling him about the possible lethal situation he had gotten himself into, as well as also getting himself into a possibly lethal situation, and his grounding would start as soon as this curse business blew over. He had enough leeway until then to deal with it but then, he was on lockdown and he was in serious trouble. He was in serious trouble at that moment too, but he wasn’t being punished for it yet.

Stiles fumbled around getting ready for bed once he got home from the hospital one-handed, his injured hand wrapped up in a cast, checking for any sign of Laura every couple of minutes.

She never came back.

Stiles looked for her the entire next day, gazing out windows and checking over his shoulder, hoping she would be there. He was so used to her presence that he felt lonely without her. Without Laura’s usual prattle, the screaming was louder than normal.

It echoed.

It lingered.

Stiles felt his chest tighten, his breathing stagger.

“Scott,” Stiles mumbled to the Alpha during study hall. “Tell me a story.”

“What?” Scott hissed, leaning close. They weren’t supposed to talk. They weren’t even supposed to be sitting next to each other. In fact, the monitor had given them specific instructions that Stiles was to sit on one side of the room while Scott was to sit on the exact opposite. But Stiles never listened, sliding into a seat adjacent to Scott’s while staring down the monitor, daring her to mention it. She never did.

“I can hear the screaming. Tell me a story.”

“Like a _once upon a time_ story?”

“Like a story, I don’t care.”

Stiles focused on Scott telling him the story that his abuela once told him. He could not tell you what the story was about even while Scott was telling it. He wasn’t focusing on the plot or the characters. Instead, he listened to the rise and fall of Scott’s voice, how he emphasized words in specific places, probably how his abuela had. The knot in Stiles’ chest loosened, and the screaming faded away.

“You okay, man?” Scott asked at the end of his story.

“Yeah, I think I’m okay. Thanks, Scotty.”

 

-&-

 

Scott led Stiles from his Jeep and into the clinic after school, hoping that Deaton would have a new lead or information that could help Stiles. Stiles pushed open the mountain ash gate for Scott and followed the Alpha into the back. Scott deposited the box by the desk and they found their way into the exam room.  

Deaton was caring for a short, stout mutt when Scott and Stiles found him. The dog was filthy, mud caked into its shaggy fur so much that Stiles isn’t sure what color he was originally. He lay, despondent almost, on his side while Deaton stitched up a deep gash in his leg. Stiles crouched by the dog’s side, watching his sad, dark brown eyes track him lazily.

“What’s his name?” Stiles asked, looking up at the veterinarian who looked back at him carefully, calculating.

“He doesn’t have one, he’s a stray that got hit by a car,” Scott explained.

“What’s, what’s going on here?” Stiles asked, gesturing to the leg.

“His shoulder is fractured, his leg almost shattered, and a piece of the car that hit him dug very deep into the muscle,” Deaton said, gesturing the x-rays pinned up on the illuminated board behind him.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“Well, if all goes well, he should be fine,” Deaton said, locking gazes with Stiles like he was trying to convey some message.

“What’s gonna happen to him? After you fix him up?”

“We’ll try and find him a home, but he’s older than what most people are looking for. And he’s most likely not going to have full function of this leg. People don’t want damaged dogs.”

Stiles scratched behind the dog’s ear and stared into his eyes. The dog stared back without blinking.

“What if I take him?”

“Stiles, he’s a stray. It’s unlikely he’s going to do well in a home at all, and-” Scott started.

Stiles shook his head.

“I can take care of him. Remember Muff?”

“Your mom’s dog?”

“Yeah, that girl was a beast that trusted no one. She loved me. And she was abused before we got her. Dogs are good for stress and anxiety, right? I’ll take good care of him, and he’ll take care of me. Right, buddy?”

Stiles rubbed the backs of the mutt’s ears, and the dog closed its eyes lazily, languidly.

Deaton and Scott shared a look and then in unison, nodded in agreement. Maybe Stiles wouldn’t have to be all alone, he thought, and maybe this stray mutt didn’t have to be either.


	12. 11-

Stiles couldn’t take the dog, who he decided to name Chewbacca given his thick brown coat and propensity for warbling back-talking growls, home until his leg is healed. He hadn’t told his dad yet, either, that he had agreed to adopt a stray mutt with a bum leg, so that would be interesting. He sat with Chewy, though, while he recovered, laying on a towel with his leg in a cast so he didn’t hurt himself further, the pack sometimes sitting with him, much to Deaton’s chagrin. Deaton brought books and theories for them, while Stiles scrolled through the internet, looking into removing of curses, and seeing the dead.

“Is any of this stuff legitimate?” Stiles asked Deaton while he was washing his hands after an exam. “Pink candles, black candles, bowls of water, what does that have to do with magic and curses?”

“Belief,” Deaton said.

Stiles rolled his eyes.

“In order for some magic to work, you just have to believe.”

“Seems like some nonsense to me,” Stiles muttered.

“Maybe, but look what you can do with the mountain ash because you believe in it,” Deaton responded. “The power of belief can do miraculous things.”

“All you need is faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust,” Stiles quoted, scratching behind Chewy’s ear lazily. The dog made an accenting grunt noise but didn’t move a muscle otherwise.

Deaton moved on to his next patient, and Stiles moved on to a new curse removal website, this one a garish red with black print, all the words centered, and the entire passage giving off an air of superiority. By the time Stiles reached the end of the entry, he was squinting and his head hurt.

He wanted to talk to someone, but Laura still hadn’t come back to him.

He wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t a foot and a half tall and currently hobbled around on three legs.

“Okay, Chew,” Stiles yawned, checking his watch and packing up when he saw it was almost dinner time. He didn’t feel like eating, he never felt like eating. Melissa had brought over her famous enchiladas for him and his dad, and he just didn’t want them. He didn’t feel hungry, and he didn’t get cravings. “I have to head home, buddy.”

Chewy looked up at him with knowing, sad eyes.

“Yeah, I know, bro. I don’t wanna leave you here, but you have to stay until the good doctor gives us the all clear. Then, you can come home with me and I won’t have to leave you so often,” he said, scratching at Chewy’s chin. He leaned into the scratches and closed his eyes. Stiles dropped a kiss between his eyes and received a lick underneath his chin in return.

“Atta boy, come on,” Stiles cooed, leading Chewy into his cage near the back entrance to the clinic. He grabbed a treat from Deaton’s stash and fed it to him as soon as he was inside. “You’re a good boy, Chew. You know that?”

Stiles shuffled the blanket over Chewy’s cage to block out the light and returned to grab his belongings.

“You’re very good with him,” Deaton noted as he carried a fat tabby cat into the exam room. “I’ve never seen a stray take to someone so quickly.”

“Maybe he knows I’m cursed,” Stiles said shrugging his backpack on over his shoulders and pulling his sweatshirt’s hood out from under the bag. “Can dogs sense that kind of thing?”

“Some believe so,” Deaton answered.

“Do you?”

“Dogs are miraculous creatures. They can sense a storm before the meteorologists predict it, and have much better senses than you or I,” Deaton went on to explain. Stiles narrowed his eyes at Deaton, vague and unhelpful as always.

“Alright,” Stiles said, shaking his head. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll stop by to see Chewy tomorrow after school.”

“I will see you then, Mr. Stilinski.”

 

-&-

 

Stiles hated how empty his house was. He remembered a time when it was full of music, full of laughter and singing, when his mother was alive. His family hadn’t ever been very big, nothing compared to the Hales, just him, his dad and his mom, but it was enough when they were all together.

“Hello? Laura? Dad?”

No one answered.

Stiles sighed and dropped his bag onto the kitchen table and rubbed at his temples. The screaming was there, ever-present, and it made his entire head feel heavy. Or maybe the heaviness was something else. Or maybe he was just imagining the weight.

He made sure the front door was locked and he had his keys on him before he started outside, heading into the forest. His house bordered on the very edge of the Preserve, which was the majority of Beacon Hills’ physical territory. The rest of the population was housed in apartment buildings inside the city limits and in the surrounding suburbs.

He’d grown up in the Preserve, even though his mother tried to keep him from wandering too much and his father just didn’t want him to get eaten by mountain lions (which would turn out to be werewolves, and were the reason Stiles was both alive and sometimes in mortal danger). He wasn’t as fluent in the ways of the woods as Derek was, who had grown up literally inside of the Preserve, howling at the moon and chasing his sisters between the trees.

Stiles had seen the way Derek moved in the Preserve, confident that his feet would fall in the right spot, sure that he was heading in the right direction. It was amazing to watch, really.

It was a long hike to the old Hale house, but Stiles made it without thinking. He let his feet do what they, on occasion, did best, and tried to channel Derek Hale as he maneuvered between fallen trees and thickets where adorable families of rabbits probably lived.

“Laura,” he called as he grew closer to the Hale house. That was where he saw her the first time, when he stepped through the doorway and felt so much pain and suffering. Maybe she’d come back to him there. “Please, come back. I can’t do this without you.”

A chilled wind blew through the forest in response.

He skirted around the Nemeton’s clearing, and he saw her, the wind chilled just from her presence.

She was standing by the Nemeton, her hand on the flat top of the stump, murmuring to it. He recognized her immediately, Jennifer Blake, or Julia Baccari, whoever she was. The Darach. The reason his oldest friend was dead, and there was a darkness that wrapped around his heart like a boa constrictor.

He tried to keep moving, tried not to alert her to his presence.

She turned as he stepped, regretfully, on a twig that snapped loudly in the otherwise quiet woods.

She called out to him, “Stilinski!”

His head moved without his permission, his ear turning towards the sound. He winced as soon as he realized his mistake.

“You there! Do you see me?”

Stiles kept walking.

“Do not ignore me!”

Stiles ducked his head, pretended he didn’t hear her, and kept walking, but the damage was already done. He could whistle old jingles all he wanted, but she knew that he knew she was there.

Stiles Stilinski, always there when you need something fucked up.

The Darach circled around a tree and stood directly in his path. He knew that he would run into her physically, and it would give him away. He also knew that if he veered off course that would give him away.

He was fucked.

He didn’t know what she could do to him while he was cursed, but he could bet it wouldn’t be anything good. He saw what she did while living, and who knew what powers she retained when she died? Laura still shifted into her beta form when she got angry or upset, and she kept her Alpha status despite Peter having taken it from her, so it was possible that Ms. Blake, or whatever, was still as powerful as she was when she died.

Of course, this was the time Laura decided to show up, appearing at the corner of his vision. Stiles faked a stumble to narrowly avoid bumping into the Darach, and kept whistling.

“Stiles,” Laura said, drifting over to him.

“Can he see you?”

“Of course, he can see me,” Laura snapped. Stiles closed his eyes.

“You really shouldn’t have answered that, Laur,” Stiles replied.

“Why?”

“We should go,” Stiles said, grabbing her arm and dragging her away. “Now, Laura. Right now would be great.”

 

-&-

 

Stiles and Laura ran all the way back to Stiles’ house, Stiles’ chest heaving, trying to catch his breath while Laura just sank onto a step on the back porch.

“I missed you,” Laura stated. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

The back door swung open before Stiles could reply and Scott came out.

“I have been calling you for the last hour,” he said, plopping down next to Laura. “Your heartbeat is out of control.”

“Jennifer Blake is a ghost,” Stiles said. “And she knows I can see her. So, I think I’m fucked. Even if this curse doesn’t kill me, she might try to.”

“Okay, so that’s a lot more important than what I found,” Scott said.

“What’d you find?”

“Not important. Come on. Let’s go see Deaton. Can you call Derek and have him meet us there?”

Stiles whined.

“Derek deserves to know, don’t start,” Scott said.

“Since when did you and Derek start being buddy-buddy?”

“Since about the fifth or sixth time we saved each other’s lives. It doesn’t matter. Derek is a part of our lives.”

“I understand that. I also have saved his life about five or six times. I just didn’t know you understood that.”

Scott stood and gestured Stiles back towards the house, leading him back inside with Laura trailing behind, muttering about great communication skills.

“You have something you want to share with the class, Laur?”

“Hi Laura,” Scott said, marching them out of the door and towards Stiles’ Jeep.

“I like him,” Laura stated as Stiles dug his keys out of his pocket. “He’s cute, and stands up for my brother.”

“Your loyalty is really easy to buy,” Stiles said.

“Don’t go spreading lies about me when I can’t dispute them,” Laura protested.

Stiles got into the Jeep and Laura grudgingly floated into the back while Scott took the passenger seat.

“You’re gonna have to call Derek,” Stiles said.

“What? Why?”

“I’m driving, and if any of the deputies catch me on my phone, I’m dead meat. I’m not just gonna get a ticket. My father will kill me.”

“Fine.”

Scott dialed and Stiles could hear Derek’s tinny voice answer.

“Hey, Derek. Stiles got himself into a bit of a situation.”

Stiles made a noise at that.

“Rude. I didn’t do anything this time.”

“Yeah, I know. Can you meet us at Deaton’s? Yeah, now would be good. It’s kind of important that we take care of this. Yeah, I think we should get the pack involved. It’s, yeah, sure. I’ll call Lydia and Allison, have them meet us there if you can get ahold of Isaac.”

Scott hummed.

“Yeah, thanks, Derek.”

He hung up and immediately dialed. Allison picked up on the other end. He quickly explained that something was happening but it’d be easier if he explained it to them all at once, and to meet them at Deaton’s. He gave the same message to Lydia while Stiles was taking the shortcut through one of the neighborhoods near the school.

“Okay, so Derek is calling Isaac. Allison has to talk to her dad, but she’ll be there as soon as she can. And Lydia is already on her way. She says something doesn’t feel right, and she wants that feeling to go away.”

“Her and me both,” Stiles said with a yawn.

“You get any sleep recently?” Scott asked, typing out a text.

“Not exactly. When this is all over, I’m going to nap for at least three days straight and no one can stop me.”

Laura and Scott laughed dutifully.

He wasn’t kidding, though. Once this curse was gone and the voices and nightmares were over, he was going to curl up in his bed, draw the covers over his head, and pass the fuck out for as long as he could get away with. He could feel his exhaustion in his bones, feel it tearing at his eyes like an itch.

He pulled into the parking lot of Deaton’s clinic, Derek’s Camaro already in a spot next to Lydia’s tiny Toyota hatchback. Stiles parked and got out, leaving the door open. Laura materialized her way through the driver’s seat and then hopped out after him. He was careful not to shut the door through her, because she always got angry when he did that.

Sometimes he would do it just to make her angry.

Scott led the way into the back room, while Stiles veered off to say hi to Chewy. He crouched down to look into Chewy’s cage.

“Hey buddy.”

Chewy pushed himself towards the front of the cage on his belly and stuck his nose through the bars. Stiles scratched at the dog’s snout as much as he could.

“That dog is adorable,” Laura said.

“His name is Chewbacca.”

“Who let you name things? When you have kids, let your wife or husband name the kids.”

“Why? That’s rude!”

“Because you’ll end up naming them Leia or something equally nerdy.”

Stiles frowned at her.

“I’m sorry, Laura Hale, sister of Cora Hale, daughter of Talia.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, we had a lot of names ending in A.”

“Besides, I think any name that is pronounceable is decent. My name is a keysmash, so Leia or something equally nerdy is a step up by my standards.”

“Stiles, we kind of want to get this going,” Scott said, poking his head through the door to the backroom. “You know, so people don’t try to start killing you, and all.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re coming. Bye, Chewy.”

Chewy grunted and flopped lazily onto his side.

Stiles and Laura walked into the backroom and found the rest of the pack lounged against the walls and tables.

“Hey!” he said as cheerfully as he could.

“What’d you get yourself into?” Derek asked, fixing him with an unamused look.

“I am offended that everyone seems to think that I did this intentionally! It’s not like I wanted this!”

“What is going on, exactly?” Lydia asked.

“Well, you know I can see ghosts. Laura being the main one,” he said, staring straight at Derek as he spoke. “One of the ghosts in town is Jennifer Blake.”

Derek flinched.

“She, uhh, knows I can see her, and I’m afraid of what she can do to me, because of the curse.”

Deaton hummed.

“Well, because of what you are,” Deaton said, grabbing a book off the counter. “It’s best if someone is with you at all times until this is solved.”

“Because of what I am?” Stiles asked. Deaton flipped through the book and held it out to Stiles.

“A Seer, essentially.”

Stiles turned the book to face him and read the passage flagged with a post-it note.

_Seers are particularly powerful creatures, although without the proper spark to their powers, may never come to know their full potential. The Seer power is, usually, matrilineal; however some exceptions can be traced back to Eastern European countries and high-ranking families. Most Seers are sparked at puberty by the matriarch of their line and cannot grow their power without this spark._

_As with most dormant abilities discussed earlier in this anthology, Seers can be jump-started by other supernatural creatures. Some documented cases include the bite of a werewolf, the spell of a witch, or a ritual performed by a druid._

Stiles stopped reading.

“So, I’m a, a Seer.”

“Yes. I think traced through your father’s family. Stilinski always tickled me as familiar, and not just because of your father.”

“So the curse, the spell the witch hit me with, that did what? It started my power?”

“Most likely.”

“Is what’s happening to me going to continue for the rest of my life? The screaming, the nightmares, the unable to sleep?”

“No, keep reading.”

_A Seer is gifted with an Inner Eye, the ability to see the future, as well as an ability to see the apparitions of those who have not left this plane of existence. Cursed Seers, however, or Seers that come into their power by the Curse of a witch, can walk amongst the apparitions and can be harmed, or even killed by an apparition, until they are cured of their Curse._

“Well, that’s bad.”

“Yes,” Deaton said.

“So, we don’t let Ms. Blake anywhere near me until we settle this,” Stiles decided.

“That is some major shit,” Laura breathed out.

A cold wind swept through the room, though none of the windows or doors were open. Stiles and Lydia gasped in unison, Stiles stumbling into the corner of the room while Lydia fell into Scott nearby.

“No,” he whispered. Her figure blew through the door, and stopped in the middle turning.

“Well, Mr. Stilinski,” she purred.

“Stiles,” Lydia whimpered. “She’s here.”

“Thank you for rushing straight to your friends,” Ms. Blake said with a grin. “I’m glad you know what you are, now. That makes this so much more satisfying.”

Stiles felt the rush of adrenaline kick through his system, begging him to fight or run.

“You know what happens to cursed Seers, Mr. Stilinski? When they’re killed at the hands of the dead? They’re stuck in limbo, in purgatory, never to see Heaven’s light nor feel Hell’s fires. Stuck in no man’s land, forever.”

“Leave him alone!” Lydia yelled, the hints of a banshee scream leaking into her words. Stiles didn’t know if she could hear and see what was happening or if it was just a sense.

“Get away from him,” Laura said, grabbing Stiles’ arm and yanking him out of the corner and towards the pack.

“Oh, what are you, his guard dog? Some inbred mutt that thinks she can stop me?”

Ms. Blake held her hand out in front of her and glared at Laura. A swirling ball of wind and power built up in her hand.

“You shouldn’t be afraid, Mr. Stilinski,” Ms. Blake said, not taking her eyes off of Laura even as she spoke. “Death is only the beginning for you.”

“Like hell is he going to die,” Laura growled.

Ms. Blake laughed and launched the ball of power towards him. Laura screamed at the same time as Lydia let out a blood-curdling screech from the corner. Laura shoved Stiles out of the way and the power ball just barely missed hitting him in the shoulder. He crashed to the floor, Laura’s solid weight pinning him there as the power hit and the room was sucked into a vacuum.

“You okay?” Laura asked as the wind died down.

“Yeah, what happened?”

Laura stood up and pulled him up with her. He took a second to survey the room, and stumbled back. Scott, Derek, Lydia, and Isaac were prone across the floor, their eyes shut and their bodies still. Deaton alone stood at the back of the room, for the first time since Stiles had met him, a shocked expression on his face.

“What happened?”

“Nothing good, Mr. Stilinski.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Yes! Readers!  
> I am alive! This story lives on! It's only been 6 months! I am so sorry!  
> College Kid Kathryn extends her sincerest apologies for the wait, and would like to promise that it won't be so long until the next update, but she shouldn't.  
> Please find me on deputy-heart-eyes.tumblr.com if you wish to follow Sterek, and puns about bisexuality.


	13. 12-

****

“Well,” Deaton said after pulling away from Derek, his stethoscope falling away from Derek’s chest. “They’re alive, all of their vitals are normal.”

“Okay, they’re alive. Why aren’t they awake?” Stiles asked. Laura rested her hand on Derek’s shoulder, kneeling beside him and watching her brother not move.

“They were hit by a spell, correct?” Deaton asked. Stiles nodded. “The spell was designed to kill you, and you are the only one it could harm. When it hit them, it did what it could, but-”

“It’s kind of like trying to make cookies without flour,” Stiles answered. “Or baking soda. Baking soda causes cookies to rise, so without it, they’re just kind of flat.”

“Right,” Deaton said cautiously, giving Stiles an odd look. “Without the curse to act as a catalyst, they were put into a sort of coma, and we just have to find the right fix to bring them back.”

“Okay, how do we find the fix?”

“The only person who can reverse this curse,” Deaton said, “is a druid or a witch.”

“You’re a druid,” Laura huffed from behind Stiles.

“Laura seems to think you could help,” Stiles said, throwing a look at her.

“This is not my specialty, and if it isn’t the right spell, it could kill them.”

Stiles nodded.

“What can we do, then? Do you know anyone that could do this for us?”

Deaton shook his head.

“No, I’m sorry. I suggest we both look into summoning something very powerful.”

“Why’s that?” Stiles asked.

“This isn’t going to be a good answer,” Laura warned him. “Magic never comes with good answers.”

“I suspect that this might have a time limit,” Deaton answered. “Go home, Mr. Stilinski, I will take care of your pack and call you if anything happens. Get some sleep.”

“Are you sure? I mean, they’re my responsibility.”

“You are a teenager, who should be home, getting some sleep. I will call you if I find anything or anything changes. Go.”

Stiles took one more look at his pack, lying defenseless on the ground of the exam room before he left, grabbing his keys off the counter. Laura followed behind, grumbling to herself.

“What do we do, Laur?”

“You go home, and you get some sleep. You’re gonna need energy to get through this.”

“Get through what?”

“Stiles, you’re a Cursed Seer whose pack was just hit by some kind of spell that was designed to kill you. You don’t think _something_ is coming for you?”

 

-&-

 

Stiles stood at the threshold of the Hale house, staring into its burned guts and just allowed himself to feel. He could feel every one of them, feel every single minute. He could feel the pain, and the agony they went through in their last moments. He could hear their screams, their cries, their pleas to God to just let someone save them, just let someone find them.

“What’s wrong?” Laura asked, her voice quiet as he’d never heard it. She was loud, and she was demanding, and she never spoke like that.

“I don’t want this anymore. Have you seen what I’ve done? What I’ve caused?”

“That bitch with the fucked up face is the one at fault here, Stiles, not you,” she said, her hand reaching out for him as if to comfort him but pulling away before she did.

“Maybe,” he sighed wearily. “But I’m the one who brought this on the pack. I had to go out into the woods. It’s always me who gets us into this shit, every. Single. Time. Scott never would’ve been bitten if I hadn’t…”

He looked up at her, lost.

“Stiles,” she said, stepping close, _gliding_ close and pressing her cold hand into his cheek. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“How can it be? I did this to them. It’s always my fault.”

“Sweetheart,” she said even more gently. “It’ll be okay.”

He didn’t believe her, how could it ever be okay again when he’d practically killed his entire pack?

His phone rang as he stepped back out of the doorway and into fresh air. He could still feel the deaths as if they were happening to him personally, but it wasn’t as intense, as suffocating. He answered it, knowing there were only two people left who would be calling him.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Stilinski,” Deaton said in greeting.

“What’s up, Doc?” Stiles asked tiredly. He wanted this whole nightmare to be over with. He wanted to go back to school and be bored by his teachers. He wanted to stay up too late because he was binge-watching shows on Netflix. He wanted to sit with Scott and Isaac and play Call of Duty without flinching at every gunshot.

He didn’t want to say goodbye to Laura, but he didn’t have to. Laura came with his own natural abilities, not this Curse that made him want to kill himself on the daily.

“I found something.”

 

-&-

 

“So, what you’re telling me is that if we don’t find a way to bring my pack out of this before the full moon, they’re going to die. They’re all going to die.”

“Yes.”

“The full moon is in three days, Deaton.”

“I understand that, Mr. Stilinski.”

“Do you? Because you don’t seem to be freaking out as much as I’m freaking out. There’s no way we can find someone who can fix this in the time we have to fix it. I can’t lose all of my friends, my pack.”

“Stiles, I-”

“I get that I brought this on us, that I did this to us, but that doesn’t mean I deserve to lose everyone and everything that I hold dear, right? Because I can’t imagine I have ever done anything so horrible that karma wants to take away everything. And I need us to find something that fixes this, that puts this right, even though I know we don’t have enough time to find a powerful enough witch or druid that can do what we need them to do, an-”

“Mr. Stilinski!”

Stiles stopped and took a deep breath, refilling his lungs after his breathless tirade.

“I found a spell I can use to summon the witch who put the Curse on you.”

“How is that going to help?”

“We can trap her, and get her to take the Curse off of you and take the spell off of the pack,” Deaton said patiently, although Stiles could hear the roll of his eyes. The veterinarian had clearly been spending too much time around Sass and Eye Roll Master Derek.

It was a Hale family trait, he had discovered over the years, the eye rolling and the general done-with-the-world-ness they exuded. Derek had it, Cora had it, Peter and Laura had it, and he was willing to bet when Talia was alive, so did she.

“Okay, is that going to work?”

“If executed correctly, yes.”

“And, do you know how to execute it correctly?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Right. When should we, you know, get to summoning?”

“Tonight, when the moon comes up.”

“Right when the moon comes up or just a general time while the moon is up?”

“As close to moonrise as we can manage, Mr. Stilinski. Be here around dusk so we can prepare.”

The call cut off, leaving Stiles with Laura on the porch of her burnt out husk of a childhood home. He slumps against what used to be a porch swing and whines, actually, literally whines. He would kick his feet and tear out his hair at this point if it would help, but the look on Laura’s face says that he’s already passed the melodrama quota for the situation.

“This is the worst. This is the literal worst. Imagine the worst thing in the world, and this is far past that.”

“My entire pack burned to death in a fire,” Laura reminded him, sinking into the porch swing with him, luckily adding no weight. He wasn’t even sure if the porch was structurally sound enough to hold his weight, let alone the weight of an adult werewolf.

“Touché.”

“I know this is probably obnoxious to say, but it’ll be okay, you know that, right? Because you and Deaton will do anything to bring your pack back from the dead. I don’t doubt that you will. And we will find a way to take off your Curse so that Freddy Krueger bitch can’t ever touch you again. It will work itself out, or I will make it work, even from beyond the grave. I promise.”

“How can you make that promise?”

“You’re my best friend, Stiles. I could make any promise and I would make sure I pulled through on it.”

Stiles smiled and rested his head on Laura’s shoulder, not wanting to contest that technically he was Laura’s _only_ friend. He needed to go home and do some homework before dusk or else his father would kill him for letting his grades plummet like this, pack crisis or no.

“What do you think we’re gonna do when this crisis passes? You help me cheat on chemistry tests and I keep you company?”

“We’ll figure something out. I’ll be around for as long as you need me, whether that’s test advice or supernatural drama or burping babies tips. I’m here for you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

 

-&-

 

The back room of the vet clinic was dark, save for five lit white pillar candles at each point of a pentagram which Deaton had carefully drawn in white chalk. Laura wrinkled her nose at the set-up, but held her tongue. Stiles could bet she was trying not to say something about how Practical Magic this was. He had to agree with her, actually.

“So, how do we do this?”

“It’s a simple procedure. You and I will stand at opposite ends of the pentagram, channel our energies into it, and I’ll recite the spell that’ll use the energy left on you to draw the witch to us.”

“Sounds legit, I guess,” Stiles said with a shrug.

“I should hope so, Mr. Stilinski.”

“What can I do to help you out?”

“Don’t knock anything over or push anything out of place,” Deaton replied. Stiles stood still without moving, knowing that if he moved, he would unintentionally push something out of the way. Deaton moved about the room, checking an ancient looking book laying open on a counter every now and again before putting things into place.

“Deaton, can I do _anything_?”

“Actually,” the veterinarian said. “I need to draw some symbols on your arm and forehead.”

“That sounds like it’s gonna suck.”

“It might.”

Laura snickered under her breath as she pulled herself up onto a counter.

“This is gonna smell so bad!” she giggled. “Spells and magic always smell bad.”

“You suck. Shut up, Hale.”

Deaton mixed up a paste with a mortar and pestle, and motioned Stiles towards the book. Stiles walked carefully, trying not to upset anything that Deaton had carefully put into place. He knew this was their only chance to fix his pack and get this Curse, hopefully, lifted off of him. He knew everything had to be as perfect as it could be or else they were shit out of luck on the Magical Fix department. He stood still, forearms turned out towards the doctor. Deaton took one and cradled it in one hand, and with a finger drew some kind of rune or symbol into the skin with the most foul-smelling paste Stiles had come across in the two and a half years he’d been in contact with the supernatural.  

 “Oh, yeah, that stinks,” Laura cackled.

It smelled like it was made out of compost that had stewed in a sewer for a touch too long. It made Stiles want to vomit, and he had to breathe shallowly so he wouldn’t be sick on Deaton’s careful magic set up.

Deaton finished and drew a companion rune on his other arm.

“You’re going to smell for a week,” Laura teased. “Or more. I’m not going to be able to be around you for extended periods of time.”

“Say, Doc,” Stiles started.

“Yes, Stiles?”

“What’s in this paste?”

“You don’t really want to know, probably,” Laura answered.

“Oh, a couple of herbs, some oil,” Deaton said without giving them a specific answer. Stiles and Laura shared a look while Deaton finished the second symbol. “Tip your head down, please.”

It smelled even worse this close and made Stiles want to actually vomit his lunch up, not that he’d had much lunch to begin with. His Curse made him not want to do much of anything, let alone eat. He didn’t sleep still, the bags under his eyes darker than they ever have been, even after his mother had died and he was plagued by nightmares and panic attacks. 

“This is not ideal, Doc,” Stiles muttered.

“It’ll be over soon, Mr. Stilinski.”

The vet stepped away and left the mortar on the counter beside the book, then checked out the window.

“Time to start.”

He directed Stiles into his position, forearms turned out into the circle while Deaton stood at the opposite edge of the circled pentagram. Deaton began to chant in a foreign language that Stiles couldn’t identify if he wanted to, and the pentagram began to glow, as well as the symbols on Stiles’ arms and forehead.

“You’re like the Avatar,” Laura giggled from the sidelines. Stiles forced himself not to smile or laugh as Laura cackled to herself. She was having a good amount of fun considering the situation.

The chanting continued and the symbols on Stiles’ skin started to burn hot. The air grew tight, vibrating louder and louder, growing with pressure until it popped and the witch stood before Stiles. She was just as unkempt as the first and last time Stiles had seen her, blonde hair tangled down to her waist and her clothes torn and old. Her eyes found Stiles quickly, and a smirk crossed her cracked lips.

“HelloStiles _,_ ” she said, her voice not echoing as it had before. “I figured you might be calling upon me.”

“Not for what you thought I’d need you for, however,” Stiles said.

“Oh? I’m intrigued. What could the former Hale emissary and the accidental Seer possibly need a lowly hedge witch like me for?”

“So you know I’m a Seer?” Stiles asked, resisting the urge to cross his arms. He was allowed to move his arms, since the chalk would hold the witch in place, but he wasn’t too keen on getting the foul-smelling paste on his shirt.

“Yes. You think I dropped my pursuit of the banshee for nothing? My coven does not mess with Seers.”

Deaton cleared his throat and gestured towards the exam room where Stiles’ pack still lay.

“We need you to do something for us,” Stiles said.

“And what makes you think that I will be willing to do this favor for you, Mr. Stilinski?” she asked, narrowing her gaze at him. Her eyes were sunken into her face, ringed with smudged eyeliner and bloodshot as if she hadn’t slept in months.

“Can you hear me?” Laura asked instead of letting Stiles answer.

“Yes, little wolf, I can hear you.”

“Good, because you’re going to do whatever that boy wants you to do, because if you can hear me, that means I can do whatever I want to you, right?”

The witch looked uncertainly around the room, eyes flitting from object to object before returning to Stiles.

“See, I have a particular fondness for this Seer, so I have an investment in making sure he’s happy. So, I’d do what he says or else you’re gonna spend an eternity in the underworld with me once I drag you from this existence. Okay? Do we have a deal?”

A moment of silence passed.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Stilinski?” the witch asked, voice tight and lips turned down into a frown.

“A druid put a spell on my pack, and I need you to take it off before they die.”

“You’re a druid,” the witch said, turning to Deaton. “You take it off.”

Deaton said nothing.

“We’re not asking Deaton to take it off. We’re asking you,” Laura reminded her.

“Where’s this pack?”

Stiles looked to Deaton who nodded and dropped a glass of water onto the chalk. Stiles showed the witch into the next room, Laura following closely. The witch surveyed the pack, keeping an eye on Stiles while she ran her hands over each member.

“Interesting. You never mentioned that the spell’s origin came from someone dead.”

“Does that change things?” Stiles asked.

“No. I just find it interesting that you’ve got yourself in a pickle with the dead as well as the living. Do you attract trouble often, Mr. Stilinski?”

“More often than I should,” Stiles admitted, watching the witch who smiled to herself.

“Good. I like interesting characters,” she said. She continued to scan the pack before she nodded. “Alright, I’ve narrowed down the spell. Give me five minutes and your pack will be back to normal. I could also remove that Curse from you.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I like you.”

“Why?”

“You’re a strangely likeable kid, once you get past the biting wit and unsubdued sarcasm,” the witch said.

“I also felt that way,” Laura commented, hovering near her brother.

“Time for quiet,” the witch replied. Stiles pulled himself up onto the counter, sitting next to Laura. He held out his hand and she took it, staring at Derek. Stiles watched the witch as she walked around the room, palms facing the pack while she muttered under her breath.

This woman was the reason Stiles was in such agony every minute of every day, why he couldn’t sleep and he couldn’t eat and nothing was happy anymore.

But she also was the reason Stiles knew Laura Hale.

“Okay, give them about ten minutes,” the witch finally said. “Would you like me to remove that curse from you, cutie?”

Stiles ignored the cutie and replied, “when you do, that won’t stop me from seeing Laura, right?”

“No, you’re a Seer. You’ll always see this Laura, and others like Laura.”

Stiles nodded and hopped down, careful not to step on Derek.

“Let’s do this.”

“My name’s Jackie, by the way,” she said as she pressed her hand into Stiles’ chest and closed her eyes. She muttered a few words and a great weight lifted from Stiles’ shoulders. He sighed happily, and looked quickly to Laura.

“Hi,” he said with a grin.

“How do you feel now, baby?” Laura asked, smiling wide back at him.

“All the better for seeing you.”

He winked, making Laura laugh. They surveyed the pack sprawled on the floor, slowly starting to blink into consciousness.

“That was strangely anti-climactic,” Stiles said, crossing his arms and nudging Derek gently with his shoe. He wrinkled his nose in his sleep and swatted at Stiles’ ankle. “And your brother is adorable. Has your brother been this adorable the entire time?”

“Yeah, you want to date him?”

“Don’t try to set me up with your comatose brother right now, Laura.”

“Okay, but can I do that later?”

“We’ll talk.”


	14. 13-

“I want to talk to Derek,” Laura said.

Stiles had stayed at the clinic until every member of his pack had rolled out of their coma. Allison had been the most stubborn and refused to be roused by anyone, even Scott who tickled and kissed her softly. Derek was grumpy when he first woke up, grumpier than normal, and it was adorable how he kept rubbing at his eyes and yawning so Stiles could see his little bunny teeth. Lydia was the sleepiest, her head resting against a cupboard door, her normally perfect hair mussed, knees drawn up to her chest. She slipped in and out of sleep, eyes drooping as she fought to stay awake. Isaac kicked whenever someone tried to get him to move and growled overtly. Scott, as usual, snuggled into anything that came close.

His pack was just the most endearing pack ever.  

“Why?”

Stiles had shuttled everyone home since the pack were still weak-kneed and blurry-eyed. He didn’t trust them to drive so he drove them home after they agreed that they would meet up later to talk about what happened. He returned to his own home and showered, laying down to nap when Laura spoke up.

“Because he’s my brother,” Laura said obviously. “And I want to talk to him?”

Stiles whined.

“Not right now,” she replied to his protests. “But before, I don’t know, soon. There are some things I have to say to him. And you’re the only way I can do that. Please, Stiles. You’re my best friend.”

Stiles groaned.

“Take a nap, Stiles. You deserve it.”

“I need a nap, but like, a tiny coma nap. Is that okay?”

 

-&-

 

Stiles followed behind Laura up to the loft, shoulders hunched and feet dragging. He didn’t want to be Laura’s middle man or her mouthpiece but she had done so much for him that he couldn’t _not_ do it. She had given him those eyes, too.

So, here he was, hands jammed into his pockets as he came up to the door to the loft.

“Here goes,” he muttered and pulled the heavy door open. Derek was lounged on his couch, book in his lap while he wore the comfiest looking sweatpants in the world paired with a soft looking t-shirt. Stiles wanted to cry, just a little. “Hey, so Laura wants to have a conversation with you.”

“How do I know it’s really Laura?”

“You think this entire time I’ve been just fucking around with you?”

“No,” Derek said cautiously. “But you don’t exactly know Laura, not from when she was alive.”

Stiles gave Laura, who had floated away from his side and came to rest on the loveseat, a look. She shrugged.

“Tell him that when we were in middle school, we would steal cupcakes from Aunt Mel’s fridge and blame it on Cora and Raleigh.”

Stiles relayed the information while he took a seat on the coffee table across from Derek whose eyebrows climbed up his forehead.

“What does Laura want to talk about?”

“First of all, she wants to tell you that she loves you but you’re an idiot,” Stiles repeated, glancing between the two. “She has some advice for you.”

Derek groaned.

“I understand that,” Stiles laughed.

“You two are the worst,” Laura grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest. She took a deep breath and sat up, uncrossing her arms. “Okay, here we go.”

“First,” Laura started.

“Stop blaming yourself for trusting Kate. She is the one at fault for the fire, not you and you shouldn’t let that drag you down or keep you from being happy,” Stiles echoed.

Derek looked anywhere but at Stiles, his eyes casually brushing over Laura in the process.

“Don’t be afraid to take leaps of faith, to go after something you want. This is your only life, stop waiting for tomorrow. And sometimes, it’s gonna feel like there is no tomorrow, but even the darkest night ends,” Stiles said, looking skeptically at Laura, perched on the loveseat. “Are you reading straight from an inspirational Pinterest board?”

“Stick to the script, Stilinski. You’re just a dead to living translator,” Laura replied before she continued. “Remember what Mom said when we were growing up. When shit happens, turn it into fertilizer.”

Derek laughed, an honestly genuine laugh that Stiles had never heard come out of that boy’s mouth. And it was beautiful. It made his heart tick up a beat for a moment before it settled down.

“You just have to put your foot forward, even just a little, because the smallest step in the right direction-” 

“Ends up being the biggest step of your life,” Derek cut in.

“Yeah,” Stiles said with a small nod.

“Can you ask her something for me?”

“She can hear you, you know. It’s just the other way that it doesn’t work.”

Although, Stiles thought, he might be able to connect them both.

“Yeah, hold on,” he said shifting on the table and holding out his hands to both of them. They looked at his offered hands with twin skepticism. “Come on, you idiots, take my hands. I have an idea.”

They both cautiously took his hand and he focused on the part of him that had been unlocked, focused on expanding it out of his chest and into his arms, into Derek and Laura. It crept through him, and then pounced onto the Hales. They gasped, and Stiles blacked out, his power overcoming him and leaving him in a void of power surging back and forth between each Hale sibling.

When he came to, he was still sitting on the coffee table. His hands shook, no longer held by anyone, and he drew them into his lap. He felt weak, his limbs heavy, his head ached, and his stomach and chest felt like he’d been hollowed out with a melon baller.

“Are you okay, Stiles?” Laura asked, reaching out to touch his forehead that was clammy with cooling sweat.

“Did it work?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Derek’s voice came from his right. “It worked.”

Stiles grinned, his energy gone.

“Then, I’m great. Can I lay down?”

Derek moved from the couch and offered it to Stiles who stood, turned and face-planted into the cushions. Derek covered him with a blanket.

“Do you want to take your shoes off?”

Stiles nodded into the pillow and Derek tugged his sneakers from his feet.

“D’ya have a nice talk?” he asked, his words slow and slurred from exhaustion. He didn’t know if there would ever be a next time, but if there was a next time, he was going to take some precautions, like not taking his medication and not having any caffeine.

“We did. Thank you, Stiles,” Laura answered, coming to sit by him and smooth out his hair. “You did so well. Take a little tiny coma for me.”

“Mmkay, love you.”

“I love you, too.”

 

-&-

 

Derek didn’t trust Stiles to drive himself home safely once he woke up from an, honest to god, seven hour nap. Which meant Stiles and Laura sat in the Camaro with Derek, silently.

The silence was driving Stiles crazy, the only sound was the engine of the Camaro growling as Derek drove.

“So, what did you and Laura talk about?” Stiles asked, trying to find some way to break the silence.

“Nothing,” Derek said quickly.

Laura, however, chimed in with, “You, mostly.”

“What?” Stiles asked, turning in his seat to look at Laura who grinned. “You did what now?”

“I want you two to try being together because it’s so obvious you want to be, and I was just giving him some sisterly advice.”

“I will find a way to kill you again if that’s true, Laura.”

Derek looked concernedly at Stiles when he twisted back around in his seat to stare at the window. He opened his mouth to say something to Stiles when they pulled up in front of the Stilinski home.

“Bye, Derek. Thanks for the ride. I’ll come pick up the Jeep soon. Bye.”

Stiles darted out of the Camaro and up the walkway, Laura drifting easily behind him, giggling.

“You’re an evil being and I don’t like you,” he hissed at her as he let them in.

“Oh, please, like you haven’t thought about my brother like that,” Laura scoffed. The growl of the Camaro faded and Stiles relaxed. “Would it kill you to go on one date with Derek?”

“No, but that’s not the issue here, Laura.”

“It’s not?”

“No. The issue here is that you feel the need to push me onto your brother instead of letting us find our way to each other naturally.”

“Oh, please. If I left it to you, you two would never find your way to each other. You two are super awkward around each other, and I’m just trying to propel you through the awkward and to the kissing.”

Stiles led them into the kitchen, his hollowness replaced by an intense, needy hunger that twisted his stomach and made him slightly nauseous.

If there was a next time to his, whatever that was, it was going to happen near a buffet where he could just swallow everything in sight.

He made himself grilled cheese and a can of off-brand tomato soup that had been in their cupboard for probably years. He hadn’t had time to go grocery shopping, and apparently neither had the Sheriff.

“What if I don’t want to kiss your brother?”

Laura rolled her eyes, the most annoying of the shared Hale mannerisms, and let out a pained sigh.

“You want to kiss him. I was there when he came out of the shower, remember? You stunk of arousal and want.”

Stiles groaned and rested his head on the cupboard.

“I forgot about that.”

Laura pulled herself up onto the counter.

“I want to go for a walk,” she stated.

“Then, go for a walk.”

“I want to go with you.”

“Give me like 10 minutes, okay?”

Stiles finished and plated his food, while Laura wandered around the bottom floor of the house. She brushed her fingers over family portraits, of Stiles with his parents, of each of his parents with their parents, of Stiles with his _babcia_ on her visit from Poland. He ate his food and cleaned his dishes before sending his dad the standard ‘I’m okay, I didn’t die, I was just recuperating from something I probably shouldn’t have done’ text.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Laura ran through all of the furniture and through the wall to beat him to the door, which she also ran through. He laughed and let himself out, patting his pocket for his keys before he pulled the door shut behind him.

They started off together slowly, heading into the woods without talking. The only sound they made was Stiles’ feet crunching leaves and grass under his feet as they went, the sounds of the forest around them loud. When Chewy got better, he wanted to take him for a walk here, let him wander and get reacquainted with the wilderness. He had been a stray before Stiles had him, so he probably would like the woods better than the house.

“Thank you,” Laura said.

“What for?”

“Letting me talk to Derek. Letting Derek see and hear me like that. It was important that we had some closure, and you did it in a way that it was just the two of us. So, thank you.”

Stiles smiled.

“I just thought it’d be better if I wasn’t trying to parrot you. This way it was more like a conversation. Plus, being a medium is kind of irritating.”

Laura laughed.

“It was nice, either way.”

It was a nice day outside, not too cold and not too hot, a general spring California day. The wind blew from the north, warm and comforting. It rustled Stiles’ jacket and his hair, but did nothing to Laura. Her hair stayed still where it was laid on her chest and behind her shoulders, and her clothes only moved when she did.

They picked their way over a small stream, Stiles stepping on a large rock conveniently in the middle of the flow of water, and climbed up a hill. At the top, the wind changed, coming from the south and was freezing.

“She’s here.”

Stiles turned and Laura turned with him.

“I hate this bitch,” Laura stated with a growl. At the bottom of the hill, her ghost feet dragging through the water unaffected, Jennifer stood facing them with her teeth barred at them.

Stiles stepped back, Laura stepped forward.

“I’m going to rip this ghosty bitch apart, if you don’t mind, Stiles.”

“I don’t,” Stiles said, sinking into the grass and pulling his knees to his chest. “Go get ‘em, girl.”

He watched as Laura rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck. Stiles grinned as Laura shifted in front of Jennifer. The Darach held her ground, and put her hands up.

“I’m impressed that your pack survived, and I cannot wait to rip you apart and leave your remains scattered on the stoop of your alpha’s house.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose at Jennifer.

“Kick her butt, baby. I’ll hold your flower.”

Laura leapt at Jennifer and dragged her into the water, although the water flowed without influence. Laura snarled and drove her claws into whatever part of Jennifer she could reach. Jennifer drove balls of power into Laura’s side. Stiles wasn’t sure who was winning, but he hoped Laura. He was rooting for Laura, and not just because if she didn’t win, Jennifer was going to rip him apart.

Except, that she couldn’t do that?

She.

Couldn’t.

She couldn’t do that, anymore! He wasn’t Cursed! He wasn’t _Cursed!_ Even if Laura lost, which Stiles didn’t believe was going to happen, Jennifer couldn’t do anything to Stiles. His Seer abilities didn’t equal a Curse. She couldn’t touch him, not harmfully.

Stiles cheered for Laura as she dragged herself to her feet and Jennifer with her by her throat.

“Say bye bye, bitch,” she snarled through her fangs.

Jennifer tried to kick and claw at Laura’s hand but failed. Laura dragged Jennifer into a tree and bashed her head into the broad trunk. Jennifer let out a cry, flickering briefly. Stiles’ mouth fell open.

“Do you know what happens to a dead bitch who tries to attack a boy under the protection of an Alpha?” Laura snarled, her voice lisping. “They die, and they don’t come back.”

Laura growled, more feral than sane at this point.

“You will never touch Stiles and my brother ever again. That’s a promise.”

With all of her supernatural strength, Laura slammed Jennifer into the tree and she simply blinked out of existence, Laura’s hand closing around nothing. She turned, features still scrunched up in her wolf form, grinning.

“You, my brother, your pack, you’re all safe. At least from her. That much I can promise. She’s gone.”

 

-&-

 

Stiles led Derek up the stairs of his home and into his bedroom where Laura was waiting, sitting on the bed with her feet kicking.

“What’s up?” Derek asked, looking around with furrowed eyebrows.

“Laura says it’s time for her to go.”

Derek frowned.

“I want to talk to him and you, so, no Seer voodoo,” Laura said, gesturing for Stiles to come sit with her.

“No Seer voodoo,” Stiles agreed and sank onto the bed. “Derek, you look like you’re about to throw up.”

“I’m, I’m, I actually might.”

“Sit down before you pass out.”

Derek sank onto the desk chair and put his head in his hands.

“Stiles.” Laura nudged him and pointed to Derek.

Stiles slid closer to Derek and put his hand on Derek’s wrist. Derek looked up and caught Stiles’ eyes.

“What is it?”

“I don’t want to say goodbye to Laura again.”

Stiles slid his hand into Derek’s and just kept quiet.

“This is a good place to step out of the way,” Laura said quietly.

“She wants to say goodbye, Derek. And we have to let her go. It’s gonna suck, but this is what we have to do.”

Derek nodded.

“Okay.”

“Are you two done having this adorable moment?”

Stiles nodded and turned to Laura but left his hand entwined with Derek’s, because it felt nice to have someone holding his hand. The Beatles had a point.

“Okay, paraphrase if you need to,” Laura said. “I love you both. I want you to be happy, whether or not that’s together or with someone else. I want to be there for all your happy and sad and awfully depressing moments, but it’s time that I go on. I want to see Mom and Dad again, and I want to see what comes after this. It’s important to me that I go with you two knowing that in my living life and my dead life, that you were the two more crucial parts and I couldn’t have been happier to have Derek as my brother, and Stiles as my best friend. I want you to know that, because your happiness means the motherfucking world to me.”

There wasn’t a light, or a door, not that Stiles could see but Laura’s figure grew fuzzier.

“Oh, that’s, well,” Stiles said, stuttering.

“What’s happening?” Derek asked, his grip tightening.

“Laura’s going. She’s getting fuzzy.”

Derek frowned.

“Tell Derek I love him,” Laura said. “But come here, Stiles.”

Stiles squeezed Derek’s hand and slid into Laura’s space.

“This is where we say goodbye, Szczepan Stilinski. I’ll make sure to tell your mom all about the wonderful young man you’re growing up to be. She’ll be so proud.”

“Laura.” Stiles reached out for her and she took his hands. “Thank you for being my big sister when I needed you.”

She smiled and nodded towards Derek. “Take care of my mutt, okay? He needs some TLC, and I can’t think of someone I trust my mutt with more than a Stilinski.”

“I love you, Laura Hale.”

“I love you, Laura,” Derek said too.

With that, Laura smiled at them with tears welling in her eyes, and her figure dissipated, leaving Stiles and Derek alone together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is technically the end. We have one chapter left, and it's an epilogue.   
> I hope you liked when I have so far.


	15. Epilogue-

“I was wondering,” Stiles said as he clipped Chewy’s collar back around his neck a few weeks later. Chewy had healed nicely, except that due to the way he had healed, he would walk with a limp in his front leg forever. That was okay with Stiles, since he would see dead people for the rest of his life. Deaton and Scott had given Chewy a bath when he first came into the clinic but it had taken several baths afterwards, and even some at Stiles’ house, for all of the dirt and mud and general crust to come loose from his first.

“What is it?” Derek asked, pulling his sneakers on from where he’d discarded them earlier. He’d run to the Stilinski home like the heathen he was, so his sneakers and bottoms of his pant legs were covered in mud.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want,” Stiles prefaced. “Because it was your moment with her, and it’s totally private, and I meant be too presumptuous by asking.”

“Stiles,” Derek said.

“What did you and Laura talk about? When I let you see her, that is. I know you had thousands of conversations when she was alive, and-”

“She explained how she died, and told me she was proud of me,” Derek replied. “It was nice. I missed just talking to her.”

Stiles nodded and lifted Chewy’s leash from the hook by the door.

“Mostly, though, she just told me how I should be dating you.”

Stiles laughed, clipping the leash to the metal ring on Chewy’s collar.

“That’s all she talked to me about for the last couple of days,” Stiles replied. “Your sister was persistent.”

Derek took the leash from Stiles while Stiles put on his own shoes and shrugged on a light hoodie. Chewy seemed to like Derek, and liked having him around. It calmed him, Stiles thought, to have someone like Derek around. Chewy also loved Scott and the rest of the pack, except when there were too many of them, then he got anxious.

“I’m glad she was, though. I didn’t know you felt that way about me,” Derek confessed. “I mean, I knew you were attracted to me. That much was obvious, but I didn’t know you wanted to date me.”

Stiles smiled and stood, taking the leash from him and grabbing the treat bag off the counter.

“Come on,” Stiles said, gesturing them out the door. “I’m taking Chew for a walk, Dad!”

“Be back by dark!” the Sheriff called from his office.

Stiles pulled the door shut behind them and let Chewy trot out as far as his leash would let him. Chewy bumped into Derek’s legs and then into Stiles’ before bounding in a wobbly circle around them.  

“You know, when Laur and I first moved to New York, after the fire, it’d be just me and her in our tiny apartment. We didn’t want to use the insurance money or any of our inheritance, so we worked all of the time, and came home at odd hours, always missing each other. When we were in the apartment at the same time, we were always dead tired or cranky. Months were spent not talking or if we talked, it was because we were fighting.”

“My dad and I were kind of like that after Mom died.”

“Grief,” Derek agreed. Stiles nodded. “Anyway, it was awful. It wasn’t until we were nearing the anniversary of the fire that we realized that we were being dumb, that taking our grief out on each other was the least helpful thing ever. We weren’t doing each other any favors by fighting over who was hurting more, and when we realized that, everything got easier.”

Stiles hadn’t heard Derek talk so much, ever.

He especially had never heard Derek talk about the fire or the time after so candidly. He kept his pain and guilt close to his chest and didn’t let anyone in, usually.

But here they were, Chewy leading them into the forest, Derek opening up about his past.

“Laura became my rock, my best friend. She was the only thing that kept me sane for those years. If I had a bad day at work, Laura was there to make me feel better with a bad werewolf monster flick and a cup of tea. If something triggered memories of the fire, Laura would sit with me all night, even if she had an early morning shift. She was always there for me, and I could always count on her. And then, she felt like her territory was being threatened.

“She told me that she had my number dialed the night she died, that she felt something was off with her pack and she needed to talk to me to make sure I was okay, but she never not the chance before Peter attacked,” Derek said.

“You remember that night you found out I had been Cursed? You pinned me against the wall?”

Derek blushed and nodded.

“Well, I felt Laura die that night.”

“I know.”

“Do you know what Laura told me her last thoughts were of?”

He shook his head, eyebrows furrowed. Stiles paused and took the leash off Chewy’s collar and then the stick from Chewy’s mouth. He tossed it easily into the forest, watching the dog take off after it in a blur of fuzzy brown fur. He wrapped the leash into a circle of rope and tucked it into his jacket pocket.

“You. The last thing Laura thought of before she died was of you. She was worried that you would blame yourself for her death,” Stiles replied. “She also worried that you would think she was too stubborn to just move on.”

“She was stubborn,” Derek stated.

“Oh, boy, do I know it!”

“Part of me was angry that you could see her and I couldn’t,” Derek said. Stiles kept his eyes on Chewy as he dragged back a branch, not the stick Stiles had thrown originally.

“I was glad I met her, even if the rest of my experience was not so good. At least I got Laura out of it.”

Derek smiled.

Chewy finally gave up on the branch since it was double his size and simply trotted back unevenly to Stiles, hoping for a treat, tongue lolled out of his mouth while he panted.

“I appreciate the attempt, Chew, but no stick, no treat,” Stiles replied to the dog. Chewy’s dark brown eyes shined with expectation until Stiles gave in and tossed him the treat. He stood on his back two legs and snatched the small cube of fake bacon out of the air.

“You are weak,” Derek replied.

“What? Look at that face and tell me you wouldn’t give in to him.”

Chewy had a small beard of light brown fur around his snout that was caked in mud again, and his paws were also mud covered. He was scruffy and his fur was coarse, but Stiles loved that little dog.

“He’s my weak spot,” Stiles continued.

Derek leaned in close as if to comment and Stiles shrugged him off with a smile.

“Don’t make a joke out of this, Hale.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

They kept walking, Chewy hobbling along in lazy arcs.

“Can I ask you something?” Derek said.

“Yeah, go for it.”

“Can I kiss you?”

Stiles stopped and turned, catching Derek duck his head as a blush tinged his cheeks.

“Why, Derek Hale, I never took you for a polite courter.”

Derek’s cheeks darkened.

Stiles laughed and stepped into Derek’s space, reaching up to skirt his fingers over Derek’s cheek.

“You don’t have to ask to kiss me. You just can.”

Derek, in turn, kissed Stiles gently, afraid to break him or break the spell. Stiles slipped his fingers into Derek’s belt loops and dragged his hips into Stiles’. He groaned as Stiles walked them backwards into a tree, their mouths never leaving the others. Stiles couldn’t think, just want.

“Stiles,” Derek all but whined.

Stiles broke the kiss and drew back, not out of Derek’s space but just enough to create a distance that let him form coherent thoughts. Before he could speak, a bundle of fur and energy plowed into his legs with a bark and bounded away playfully.

“Ahh, yeah, he wants all of the attention to be on him at all times,” Stiles commented, a fond smile crossing his face.

“Like someone else I know,” Derek teased, pressing his nose into Stiles’ temple. Stiles hummed happily. “We can do more of that later.”

Stiles grinned.

“I hope that’s a promise.”

Derek kissed him just once, light and quick, and said just for him, “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it, baby.  
> I hope you liked it and you'll stick around my page to read some other fics!  
> Encouragements are accepted in form of kudos and comments ;)  
> This is[Chewy](https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/197107_5042232111_554_n.jpg?oh=fecfa8961fdaf4d11427fdfa14919d6c&oe=5592016A&__gda__=1435261226_549cff47e7bd29e0d1d1edfc1b586d3d), in case you were curious.  
> DFTBA


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